


dream smp drabbles and unfinished fics

by Enderwoah



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Author Does Not Like Toby Smith | Tubbo, CHARACTER CHARACTER C!TUBBO PLEASE CC!TUBBO IS A JOY, Depressed TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Enderman Hybrid Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Execution, Exiled TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Gaslighting, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Hybrid Toby Smith | Tubbo, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jschlatt is Not Nice, Lowercase, None of this is fluff, Not yet at least im sure i'll write a fic where he is at some point lmao, President Toby Smith | Tubbo, Protective Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo needs a hug, Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Song Lyrics, Sorry Not Sorry, The Crimson (Dream SMP), Toby Smith | Tubbo Has PTSD, Toby Smith | Tubbo Needs a Hug, TommyInnit Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Verbal Abuse, Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Whump, Written before the Christmas Nightmare Festival, all of this is angst, and that's where i'll leave that, and uh, borealtwt get ur grain pspspspspsps, but his character...., i dont specify! moobloom goat ram whatever you want he just has horns, i made endermen weird :D, i say that these are "drabbles" but very few of them are actually under 1000 words, i wrote happy stuff!, oh well, so far - Freeform, sorry - Freeform, there's some, what kind of hybrid?, whoomf.....
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 24,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enderwoah/pseuds/Enderwoah
Summary: exactly what the title says, i start and don't finish a lot of fics, but i'm sometimes proud of them, so i'll be posting them here!most recent chapter: questions answered.description: Tubbo plays a prank on Ranboo and it goes just a bit too far.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Ranboo & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Tommyinnit & Toby Smith | Tubbo
Comments: 76
Kudos: 574





	1. ranboo's execution

Dream escaped with his life -- nobody knows how he did it, or how he knew, but he did. Alex had a screaming fit and almost threw himself on the fleeing man, needing both Tubbo and Fundy to hold him back from his rage.

Ranboo brought the wrong book. It was his mistake -- he makes a lot of those -- and a fatal one, as he would soon learn. As the members of the cabinet yelled and shouted, Ranboo scribbled hurriedly in his book. He knew he'd to have to write what he actually feels, lest he forgets again and gets confused about his actual morals. But he didn't see it coming when Alex jumped up and snatched the book out of his hands, snapping the fragile quill in two as the crazed teen flips through the pages, muttering about Ranboo not paying attention to the conversation.

"'Technoblade is cool?'" Alex says aloud in disbelief, and Ranboo feels his blood run cold, colder than it usually is. "'In an okay way?' What the hell?"

Before he can even make an excuse, Tubbo snatches the book from Alex's hands, his own eyes wildly scanning the messy scribbles. Ranboo holds his breath in expectation for the moment -- and the moment does come. Tubbo looks up at him with a shattered expression, and he can only barely hear him whisper, "Tommy is alive?"

Fundy leans over Tubbo's shoulder, reading the journal, and he comes up looking angry. "You -- you knew Tommy was alive and you _didn't tell us?"_

And Ranboo suddenly has to cover his ears, hunched over, because they're all yelling and shouting at him because he betrayed them, and he lied to them, and they thought they could trust him, and he can only vaguely see Phil out of the corner of his eye looking on worriedly from the porch of his house. It's all so loud, it's all _so, **so**_ loud that he doesn't even fight when they shove him into the cage in the middle of L'Manburg, and he won't fight back as long as they just stop screaming at him.

Ranboo slides down the cage as the cabinet walks a few feet away, and he can't hear what they're saying because his hands are still over his ears. Once he finally lets them down and holds onto the bars, he can only catch snippets of conversation.

"Don't want to --" "Traitor --" "Lied --" "Conspiring with Dream --" "True --" "Quackity --"

And while he's still trying to process all of that, Tubbo walks up to him with a solemn yet slightly disgusted look on his face. He pulls a piece of the iron bars away, detaching them and leaving a space open right in front of Ranboo's face. He thinks he's getting let out, but when Tubbo walks away with the piece of the bars, he knows that that isn't the case.

The color drains from the hybrid's face as Quackity walks just in front of the cage, a mere ten feet away, Tubbo standing to his left and Fundy to his right. Quackity holds a bow -- the one-shot bow they were going to use to execute Dream.

"Ranboo, you have been accused of committing treason of the highest degree. A crime which, as instilled by a...past president of L'Manburg, warrants execution."

Execution. The word rings through Ranboo's ears and bounces around in his head, and it takes him a few moments for him to even register it, and when he does, his hands are on the bars in front of him and he's pleading. "Tubbo, I didn't -- it wasn't treason, I just followed -- I just...um...I -- I can't remember how I got there, but I saw Techno and Tommy, and if I told you about Tommy you would have known I was with Techno, so I couldn't --"

"So you _lied_ to me about it?!" Tubbo suddenly exclaims, and Ranboo's mouth snaps shut. "You -- you let me think that my _best friend_ took a fucking swan dive off of Logsteadshire to save your own hide?! I -- I can't believe you!"

"It wasn't to save my own hide," Ranboo squeaks, and he clears his throat. "I just knew that Quackity would take this information and do _exactly_ what he's doing now with it!! You're all being irrational, I didn't do anything --"

" _Shut up,"_ Tubbo hisses, and Ranboo silences himself in fear for the second time. Tubbo looks up with steely eyes, though Ranboo can clearly see his knuckles turning white as he clutches the iron bars in his hand. "You have been sentenced to death for treason, Ranboo. You are also hereby exiled, for when you respond. What you did was...un-unforgivable. Quackity," Tubbo turns to the shorter male and nods, his voice lowering to a hushed whisper as he says breathily, "If you could..."

Quackity raises the bow to eye level, and Ranboo can feel the tears springing to his eyes and burning his skin. He frantically tries to wipe them away in pain, but they merely cause more, and when he can't do anything to stop them, he tries to plead with Quackity through expressions. they lock eyes, and Ranboo knows he looks as miserable and regretful as he could possibly be because _he doesn't want to die, he's so scared, he doesn't want to die again it always hurts it always always hurts --_

Quackity smiles.

"Sayonara, _traitor."_

And the last thing Ranboo sees before it all goes black is the tipped arrow zipping through the air, aiming to land right between his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written in ranboo's discord.
> 
> written on 12/19/20.


	2. discovery

Tommy has no idea how Dream found the room.

It’s not like it was expertly hid or anything, but it’s not like you can just stumble upon it, either. Then again, Dream always has his way of knowing these kinds of things. He remembers the incident with the trident -- it was a bad idea at the time, of course, hiding the trident in a chest in the ground to keep, but he definitely didn’t expect Dream to know about it instantly. When he laughed and asked for the hidden trident back, Tommy thought he was going to be in the most trouble he’d ever been in -- and then Dream gave him the trident anyways. It was almost like he didn’t care.

That definitely isn’t the vibe he’s getting from the masked man right now.

Five inches is so much more of a height difference when the taller person is looming over you, and when you can basically feel the heated waves of anger radiating off of them. Dream’s teeth are clenched together, fists balled to the sides of his chest. Tommy hates how small he feels, how every inch of him wants to climb the ladder and get the hell out of that tiny room, running to his thinking room, or the chest room, or through the Nether portal, or back to L’Manburg, because at least that would stop the agonizing, tight ball of anxiety in his chest. There would be no need for anxiety, because he knows for certain that as soon as he steps foot through that first Nether portal, he’s running straight off the edge. And if he somehow manages to not, as soon as he gets into L’Manburg, it would be on sight. There’s no need for anxiety because he knows that both will result in his death.

It suddenly clicks in his head after too long that he’s just crossed the same man who took two out of three of his real lives and has come far too close to taking his final. Who has promised to take his final if he even dares to go back home.

His eyes dart around the room, from the cobblestone walls to the opened chests to the items scattered around everywhere that Dream indubitably threw around in rage upon first seeing it. And then he’s suddenly forced out of his wondering by Dream grabbing the front of Tommy’s already torn and shredded shirt, yanking him closer. Tommy does nothing to resist, unwillingly flinching at the sharp and sudden movement.

“Tommy, I’m going to ask you one final time,” Dream seethes, his voice not raising louder than a mutter but the intent still caring through all too clearly.  _ “What did you make this room for?” _

“I -- Dream, I didn’t --” Tommy’s voice sounds broken and terrified, how he can’t stop the tears from springing to his eyes -- that, oddly enough, have little to do with the fear. It’s more to do with the  _ guilt.  _ “I’m -- Dream, I’m sorry, I don’t, I didn’t, I --”

“Answer the _fucking_ question, Tommy!” Dream suddenly sells, shaking Tommy by the front of his shirt and causing him to let out a miserable yelp of fear. Tommy’s hands instinctively raise up to loosely grasp Dream’s wrists, weakly trying to keep him from “Why couldn’t you put this stuff in your chest room, or in the barrels, why is this hidden? If you don’t answer me I’m  _ going  _ to kill you. Don’t fucking test me.”

Tommy lets out a shuddering breath and stares up at Dream with pleading eyes. “Please don’t make me say it, please don’t kill me, Dream, I’m sorry, please, please.”

Tommy, frankly, doesn’t know what he’s saying ‘please’ for -- he doesn’t think it’s because of what he’s saying. He supposes it may be something else, but he doesn’t want to dwell on it.

Dream keeps one hand on Tommy’s shirt, summoning one of his many swords in the other. Tommy can clearly see the glint of the enchants, the runes carved into the sides that he distinctly remembers Phil teaching him when he was younger:  _ Fire Aspect. _ He doesn’t think going up in flames would be a fun way to go out -- or, at least, not when it’s coming from a sword. From someone he thought was his friend.

No, who is he kidding -- Dream still is his friend, this is his fault. Dream didn’t do anything, and Tommy decided that he would try and go against him for no reason aside from petty grudges. He closes his eyes softly, letting out yet another breath and allowing his shoulders to droop. “Dream, I --” His grip on Dream’s hand tightens. “I was gonna -- I was gonna use it to...y’know, fight back. Rebel. When -- when this was all over. I know it’s stupid and super shitty of me and I shouldn’t have done it and I swear it won’t happen again, I’m --”

He’s cut short by the look on Dream’s face -- he couldn’t have prepared himself for that. Dream let’s go of his shirt, and Tommy almost topples over, losing his balance. When he looks back up to Dream, he can’t help but release a choked sob. The older man has pulled his mask to the side, and Tommy can clearly see the look of hurt reflecting in his eyes. He looks gobsmacked, and his sword disappears from his hand as he tilts his head slightly to the side. “You were going to --  _ me?” _

Tommy only manages violent nods as the tears run freely down his face, his hands reaching up to grasp at the sides of his hair. “‘M sorry Dream, I won’t do it again, please don’t leave, please don’t leave.”

“Tommy, I’ve only been nice to you! I haven’t -- I was supposed to be here to make sure you weren’t starting back up, that you weren’t going back to L’Manburg, and I decided to be  _ kind! _ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 12/13/20.
> 
> unfinished.


	3. a death fit for an enderman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the lowercase is on purpose i swear, i switched to google docs from discord in the middle of it, that's why the capitalization turned all weird.

ranboo genuinely has no idea how he ended up in the situation he's in.

he knows his memory gets spottier because of anxiety, but he didn't think it'd ever get this bad. he has no idea how he ended up standing next to the l'cast lake with dream, who stands next to him with his hands stuck in his pockets. he's sure that there's a reason and it was probably bad, given that he literally cannot remember how he got there for the life of him. he feels just about ready to book it out of there when dream startles him by speaking.

"so. you know why i brought you here."

ranboo looks down at the older man and mentally blinks before shaking his head. "n -- i, um, i can't, i, uh --"

"you can't remember? geez, i didn't know your memory got that bad," dream says in a light tone, and ranboo laughs nervously.

"it really only gets this bad when i'm...uh...an-anxious. about something. but i can't even remember what."

"mm." dream turns back to watch the sunset, and then says in the most ironically flippant tone, “well, i have to kill you, ranboo.”

ranboo suddenly finds himself a solid twenty feet away. he feels heat rise to his face -- why is he feeling embarrassed? the guy literally just threatened his life. he looks back to where dream was standing, turning to run away, but he runs right into dream. he’s left speechless as he starts to back away, but dream grabs his arm before he can do so and he freezes.

“it’s -- it’s nothing personal, really,” dream says jovially. “i know about how your brain works -- you basically do a total reset when you die canonically, right? i need you to get away from tommy, you won’t listen…” dream shrugs. “i get it. you’re a good friend, but, um...it’s a little annoying for what i’m trying to do, y’know?”

“i -- why are you being so chill about this?! -- no, let me go, dream, stop!”

his cries land on deaf ears as dream shoves him to the ground, planting a foot on his chest and knocking all of the air out of ranboo’s lungs. he draws a bow and points it right at ranboo’s forehead, and he’s never wished that he can teleport on command more before. “a -- again, it’s nothing personal. i like your vibe or whatever, but yeah. sorry.”

he lets go of the arrow, and ranboo, once again, finds himself elsewhere. without even considering where he is or where Dream is, he starts to run away to -- somewhere. and somewhere from inside of him, alarms start to blare and he finds himself at the edge of the pond. he sees dream standing a few ways away, an arrow in a tree some feet away. ranboo feels sick when he realizes that that was supposed to be in his skull. so was the other arrow.

dream blinks out of existence and right next to him yet again, and ranboo teleports away from him for the third time. his heart hammers hard in his chest from adrenaline and overuse of the teleporting feature and he sighs in relief before realizing that he is in the air.

he lets out a screechy kind of scream as he falls, and is instantly cut off when he hits the water. it’d hurt like balls for any normal person, but he can feel his right side light on fires he’s fully submerged, starting to thrash around and kick his limbs wildly as he tries to claw his way back to the surface, all of the air leaving his lungs yet again thanks to the pain. he can see another shadowy figure through blurry eyes that starts to make its way back to the shore -- dream, obviously, leaving him to drown. easily the worst way to go out.

Feeling his consciousness start to leave him, he latches on to the remaining bit and wills himself to --

Vwoop.

Ranboo hits the grass hard, and he rolls over, choking and coughing to try and get the water out of his lungs. He takes in huge, heaving gulps of air, and he feels like he’s about to have a heart attack from how hard it’s beating in his chest -- he’s sure anyone around would be able to hear it. If it beats any harder, it’ll explode, he thinks.

And suddenly, in the middle of that thought, he feels his hair be grabbed and yanked upon, and he lets out a breathy scream. A voice from above him rings through his head, muffled and blurry, saying, “alright, fine. Since you want to be annoying about it --”

Ranboo suddenly feels his body lurch, his arms being pulled behind his back and the grip on his hair tightening -- he lets out an even louder scream at the mishandling of his sensitive, burned skin from the water, the tears bubbling to his eyes not at all helping with the effect -- before he’s suddenly jerked forward and his head is submerged in the water.

he had no idea this type of pain existed. He tries to thrash around in Dream’s unrelenting grip, trying to get him to let go, but to no avail. Though the foggy haze of the water in his lungs, in his mouth, burning his skin like acid, he tries to focus on himself to try and teleport, but the sharp pain that shoots through his heart when he does is enough to deter him from trying any harder. The burning in his lungs (that is substantially worse on the right side for obvious reason) is easily the most sufferable pain -- his skin, on the other hand, feels like it’s being melted away with a torch, like if he’s left under there for another second his right half will be nothing but bones, and his eyes both burn too and everything is so blurry and foggy, and he can’t focus on anything because everything hurts, and his head is pounding but he can slowly feel his consciousness start to slip away and then --

And then it’s jerked away, and he blacks out.

...Dream keeps him under for a few more minutes before the twitching stops. Just to be safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written on 12/19/20.


	4. wither poisoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i know it says dream smp in the title but I don't think people interested in the dream smp would not be interested in mcyt amirite.
> 
> (minor caps at the end in the notes)

George never realized that wither poisoning would hurt as much as it looked in the game.

Unfortunately for him, it most certainly does, and it’s taking all of his willpower to not scream bloody murder and wisk all of their lives by alerting every single wither skeleton in the Nether. He instead opts to grit his teeth in pain, hobbling away from the oncoming foe as fast as he can in the opposite direction, clutching his bleeding right arm as tightly as possible without shattering his bones.

Glancing around, he isn’t met with the normal yellow color of Dream’s jacket, the black and white of Sapnap’s outfit, or the black and yellow of Bad’s cloak. He’s only met with the dark grey Nether fortress walls, twisting corners and seemingly endless halls. The Wither poisoning gnaws past the relatively shallow cut on his skin, no, it seeps into his bones and makes them feel brittle, as if the mere force from his feet hitting the ground would be able to break his arm into thousands of pieces. If it didn’t hurt so much, he could almost say the light, hollow feeling feels nice.

Of course, it definitely hurts, and he definitely doesn’t think it feels nice. Feeling this... _ fragile _ definitely isn’t something he’s used to, especially since starting Minecraft, where hearts regenerate quicker than you can blink and jumping from trees does little to your health. Tears prick at the corner of George’s eyes, his chest heaving as he blindly makes his way through the twists and turns of the Nether fortress, running past already scavenged chests and blocked off sections and trying to get  _ out _ , trying to escape from the clattering of bones echoing from all sides.

“D-Dream - ha, hha, Dream, Sapnap, c’mon, where  _ are _ you all --” George’s mutters are cut off by coughing -- the smoke and general lack of oxygen in this other dimension are none-too-forgiving, especially when one is already pushing himself by running through this maze of horrors. He doesn’t have the time to dwell on it for too long, though, because the coughing made him lose time, and losing time means the skeletons and the blazes and everything else that's trying to kill him has even more time to do so. Losing time is unforgivable when your life is capable of ending at any given moment.

George flies up the second set of stairs he’s seen so far, rushing past the small pit of lava and is thrown out into the open, the Nether fortress ending abruptly in the next corridor. For once, he’s thankful to see the drab grey of the netherrack that resembles the Nether’s dirt, the dull gold flooding his vision as he glances over to the endless seas of lava to the right, and the large quantities of zombie pigmen that lull about without a care in the world. He speeds past them, jumping down to get as far away from that deathtrap of a fortress as possible, as the skeletons wouldn’t just immediately leave him alone. He continues to run, running without thinking until he physically has to stop himself so he can  _ breathe _ .

He hisses as he feels the pain of the cut still in his arm, the adrenaline no longer masking the full impact of it. He twists his arm to get a better look at it and lets out a small gasp, wincing. It...it really isn't a shallow cut at all. The wound is deep and clean, a perfect, precise slice. The blood smeared across his elbow and forearm is hardly of concern, considering the dark grey tinted veins that seem to be spreading from the wound. Not to mention the aching, light, brittle feeling that turns into a searing pain when he tries to twist his arm slightly further -- he stops, and lets it far to the side. It  _ feels _ like it’ll break at even the tiniest bit of impact, and he’d really rather not test to see if his theory is true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unfinished. written on 9/28/20, /slightly/ edited on 12/28/20.
> 
> i literally only posted this (knowing that I've scammed the readers by making it not dream smp related) so that I could put this on the record and PRAY that I'm correct:
> 
> I, ENDERWOAH, ON 12/28/20 AT 8:15PM EST, PREDICT THAT RANBOO IS GETTING HIS ASS EXECUTED TOMORROW AT THE FESTIVAL. PLEASE, I WANT IT TO HAPPEN SO BAD.
> 
> ahem.
> 
> i will edit with updates.


	5. netherite mining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shhh i know ranboo didn't actually care about l'manburg blowing up, so the end of this doesn't really...make sense but SHHH please let me have this. anyways.
> 
> Ranboo explains some things to Techno and Phil.
> 
> tw/cw: mentions of suicide.

Living with the anarchy pair -- Phil and Techno -- is a lot calmer than one would assume. In fact, Ranboo is sure that he’s the calmest he’s ever been in that remote, snowy biome.

The little house Phil built for Ranboo is bigger than the one he had in L’Manburg, which is a relief. His home was a zoo, and he could barely move around without bumping his head on some random ledge. But the area that was given is large, large enough to fit all his (remaining) pets and for him to stand up straight without hurting himself. And it connects to the dog kennel, too. To some, the whining and growling and barking from the other room would be bothersome, but Ranboo is naturally good at filtering out those background noises (except when he’s not). And he’s basically been given twenty-plus therapy dogs -- he is not ashamed to say that he’ll sit in the middle of the room sometimes and cry while three or so dogs sit on his lap or something like that.

When he came, he was afraid that he’d have to start from scratch -- not that that’s too much of a problem, he was always one to mine even if he didn’t _need_ the resources, per se, but it’d still be annoying. Thankfully, Techno is easily the most loaded person on the server -- even more than Ranboo, who definitely held that title in L'Manburg. He'd have no problem with food or ores or anything, and since he kept all of his tools in his ender chest, he was basically set.

Not to say that he'd just leech off of Techno's hard work the entire time -- he'd feel bad, even though his very few needs and wants would barely put a dent into Techno's supply. Which is why he finds himself in a deep sector of the Nether, inventory full of beds, ready and set to netherite mine.

He also finds himself in a call with Techno and Phil, who are just chit-chatting about different subjects, hopping back and forth, making small talk. Ranboo stays silent for the majority of it, only piping up and adding his own pieces when it seemed fit. He mines his way to the appropriate Y level as Techo changes to a slightly touchy topic.

"Y'know, I was sneakin' around 'L'Manburg' earlier --"

"Of course you were."

"Shut up. So I was in the area, and I saw Tommy and Tubbo, just laughin' it up about something dumb like their country _wasn't_ blown up a few weeks ago, like Tommy wasn't just preachin' about how they weren't friends anymore a bit before that…"

Phil laughs, and Ranboo lays down a bed in front of him, his brows furrowing slightly. He doesn't know where this is going. "Well, I guess they're friends again, now that Tubbo isn't a president anymore," says the older man simply. "As to be expected, it was really putting a strain on their relationship."

Techno snorts. "Uh-huh. I doubt that was true, either."

Ranboo tilts his head to the side, placing down the block in front of the bed and leaning on it slightly. "What do you mean?"

"He and Tubbo, their relationship probably wasn't even as bad as he made it out to be, was it?" The question was clearly rhetorical, and a heavy silence hangs in the air as Ranboo leans over the block, his hand hovering over the bed, ready to tap it for the explosion. "I mean, he wasn't being honest with the Dream thing, so I wouldn't put it past him to --"

Ranboo's hand drops in shock and hits the bed, causing it to explode and send Ranboo flying backward, landing hard on the ground. He runs his side as shouts emerge from the call, particularly Phil's concerned ones.

"Ranboo, what the hell was that, are you okay?" He asks, and Ranboo nods before forgetting that they aren't there with him.

"Yeah, I'm netherite mining, I'm fine," he says, rushed. "Techno --"

"Give us a warnin' next time, kid, Jesus Christ."

"I got it, I'm sorry, Techno, what do you mean Tommy was lying about the Dream thing?" Ranboo asks, getting up and shaking himself off before slowly moving into the artificially created cavern, eyes scanning the area for debris. "What's 'the Dream thing'?"

"Uh...the exile thing?" Techno responds slowly. "The way Dream treated him in exile? Why?"

Ranboo lets out a shaky breath. "What do you mean he was lying about it?"

Ranboo can almost hear Techno's eyes narrowing as he asks, "...what's the matter with you? What's it to you?"

"Techno, just _explain what you meant."_ Ranboo finds his voice coming out more forceful than it usually does -- more forceful than it's ever been with Techno, that's for certain.

Techno is silent for a moment before letting out a huff. "He over-exaggerated whatever it was that Dream did to him in exile so I could help him. After what he did at the festival, I thought it was pretty clear that he was saying those things so he could use me," He pauses before adding bitterly, "Like they usually do."

Under normal circumstances, he'd feel bad for Techno. He'd try and give reassurance, comfort, anything like that -- and certainly, those feelings are there somewhere, but they definitely aren't as prevalent as they usually would be.

He sits in silence as the gears in his head turn on how to respond to this, and he hears Phil's voice waver as he quietly says, "Techno, I think that might be a bit...harsh, don't you think?"

"No," Ranboo replies before Techno does. He shakes his head as he bridges over the gap to move to the next area to mine. "He's right. Tommy did lie."

Techno huffs indignantly. "Of course he did. I can't believe these people, my own --"

"Let me finish," Ranboo says coldly, and Techno is quiet. "He lied, but not because he over-exaggerated, no. Tommy _under_ -exaggerated."

There's a pregnant pause before Phil asks, "What do you mean, Ranb?"

"Can I be real with you two? Can I be straight with you, just for a second?" The hybrid takes the silence as an answer, feeling a warmth bubble in his chest that brings back vague memories of after the festival. Memories of yelling, exchanging harsh words with people that he was close enough with to consider his siblings. Anger, it was, feeling unheard and misrepresented and misunderstood, surrounded by people who spoke confidently as if they knew everything when in reality, they knew _nothing._ "Tommy…" he takes in a shaky breath, steeling his nerves. "Tommy almost _killed himself."_

Dead quiet. Ranboo finds the emptiness of the VC filling his heart, festering and making his anger grow stronger. "Tommy almost killed himself," he presses, and he hears someone's breath hitch. "Six or seven times. Probably more, when I wasn't there."

"He...he _what?"_ Phil whispers, sounding as heartbroken as he could possibly be, and Ranboo finds no sympathy in his heart.

"Yeah. Dream came every _single_ day and blew up all of the things he had mined and collected and made in a hole in front of him after making him throw it in himself," he hears Techno makes a strangled noise and realizes that he knows something. "What? What is it, Techno? Hear something you remember?"

Nobody says anything, nobody in the call _breathes_ until Techno says, "I...I told him to take off all his armor one time -- we needed to be invisible, and he just froze and started dumpin' everything from his inventory out onto the...floor…"

Ranboo clicks his tongue. "Well, there you go! Prime example. This went on for _months,_ Techno. Every day. Without fail. Except, of course, the days when Dream didn't come at all and left Tommy alone in that freaking _wasteland_ \-- hey, Phil," he says pointedly, acknowledging the radio silence coming from the older man's end. "Wanna guess how many times I went to visit him and found him just crying in that stupid tent of his? Holding that compass in his hands, sometimes not responding to me when I shake him? Maybe you found him like that once, Phil? Oh, wait!" Ranboo lets out a laugh, and there's no humor behind it. He places a bed, block, and taps it, making it explode. "You never went to visit him, did you?"

Phil's silence is an admission, Ranboo decides, but then he has the _audacity_ to speak up and say, "I...I was never invited...he never said anything, he never asked, I--"

 _"Shut up,"_ Ranboo snaps, clenching his fists at his side. He's _seething_ with rage, and he's unsurprised when the man does actually shut his mouth. He can practically hear the guilt seeping through the communicator. "I've only known him for a few months -- hell, I met him a couple of _weeks_ before he was exiled, and I visited him whenever I could. I was never asked to, I wasn't _invited_ \-- are you telling me that his acquaintance-at-best had more of a reason to visit him than his own _father?"_

The silence from the other end of the call only fuels the tall boy's anger, and he realizes that these emotions have been pent-up ever since the first time he saw Tommy acting that way, ever since he stood on that wooden beam in the Nether over a sea of lava and asked Ranboo if it was worth it. And nobody -- _nobody_ ever questioned him when he came back and talked about "what Dream did to him" while he was in exile. Nobody asked for clarification -- no, Ranboo thinks, maybe they didn't because they assumed that what Dream did was right. After all, Tommy came back much quieter, much less likely to cause problems, right? Which means what he did worked!

Oh, it worked.

“Hey, Techno? Has there ever been anything else weird that Tommy's done near you? C'mon, anything you're confused about? Can't explain? I'm sure I know more than you've ever asked about, I won't judge you."

Techno, who's made next to no noise outside of his words, inhales sharply and says, strained, "There -- after my execution, there was a room that I ran into. This blackstone room filled with chests, and they had names on 'em, Tommy's and Wilbur's and Fundy's...all of those. I showed it to him a few days later -- and he just started to panic. What...what happened with that?"

Ranboo scoffs and laughs yet again, bitter and quiet. "That's not even something recent, Techno. Did you even read up on the history of the country you _joined_ to help? Y'know Eret? How everyone calls them a traitor?"

"...oh."

"Yeah! During the first war the war that Tommy was basically the commander of, Eret led everyone, Tommy, Wil, Fundy, and Tubbo, led them all into there, pushed a button on the floor, and the walls opened up to the opposite side coming in and _slaughtering them all."_ Ranboo taps yet another bed, wincing at his proximity to the explosion and dodging lava before continuing, "Oh, and you know what? Dream was the one that killed Tommy in there, too! Pretty sure from blunt force trauma, if I read the logs from that day correctly. And a few hours later, Dream proceeded to _shoot Tommy in the head_ with an arrow-- honestly, it's a miracle that he's still alive! Both of his other lives were taken on the same day!

"And you know what? Dream came really close to taking that third one! Maybe not directly, no, he wanted Tommy to do it himself, but it would have been his fault. Tommy would have been dead if it wasn't for one of Dream's own slip-ups. His own cockiness. Not someone coming to help him, not someone comforting him and telling him it's alright, not someone reminding him that Dream isn't someone he could rely on, no. He..."

Ranboo's voice suddenly breaks, and he feels stinging tears rise to his eyes as he steadies himself on the netherrack next to him. "He's alive because of himself. He snapped _himself_ out of it. And...and I _tried_ to help him, I visited him whenever I could, but you know what?” The boy laughs, and it sounds broken, useless, pained. “It probably didn't help him! Because the _only person_ that would regularly visit him is someone who apparently didn't know anything about him! Someone who hasn't seen all of the things he's done, and everyone, _every single person_ that _has_ seen him, seen his actions, everyone that knows him _abandoned him._ He thought everyone hated him. He thought _Tubbo_ hated him -- Dream told him he burned his compass, he didn't have _anything_ to live for..." Ranboo inhales sharply, sniffing and wiping his face before putting on an expression of steely determination fused with anger. "And he got himself out of that mindset. _Alone._

"He's stronger than the both of you combined. He did that for himself, and then you two turned around and teamed up with the man who’s targeted his friends, his family, who orchestrated the death of his brother, who’s ruined his childhood, who’s hurt him the most in his entire _life_ to destroy the one place he’s seen as a permanent home. _Shame on you._ "

Suddenly, startling him a bit, Ranboo hears the sound of someone disconnecting from the call, and he feels justified. He has no idea who it was, but whoever it was clearly got the message.

Ranboo bridges over the gap as he revels in the stunned silence from whoever is on the other end, placing another bed and tapping it and hearing someone’s breath hitch from the other end after the explosion. “I know, whoever you are, that you care about Tommy, okay. And...I’m sorry for yelling,” he lies through his teeth. He isn’t sorry. He feels bad about shouting, yes, but he isn’t sorry. And if it proved his point to them, he doesn’t regret it. “But you needed to know. I couldn’t stand hearing you talk about him as if he was just...lying to use you from the start. Tommy would never do that. He’s made stupid decisions that have hurt you in the past, I know that, and he...he feels _awful_ about it now that he knows. Now that he understands. Now that you’ve _explained_ how you felt to him.”

Ranboo, frankly, has no idea why he’s started directing his speech towards one person. He could be wrong and looking like a fool, but he’s pretty sure he isn’t. Just a gut feeling. “And now...I’ve explained how he feels to you. And I hope you can take it into account the next time you celebrate the destruction of L’Manburg. Because Techno?”

Ranboo waits in the silence until he hears a quiet, “...yeah?”

“It’s nothing to celebrate about. You hurt him _so_ much. I know it’s going to be hard for me to forgive you. I just hope he’ll let you off a little easier.”

Ranboo continues what he was doing as if nothing happened. Nobody leaves the call until he places down the last bed in his inventory, tapping it and causing a large explosion. Only then does he hear the disconnect noise.

He scans around the cavern and smiles slightly. Netherite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written from 1/7/21 - 1/9/21.


	6. iron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ranboo is an iron golem/enderman hybrid.
> 
> Unfortunately, iron is a good conductor.

"Tubbo -- I don't think this is really a good idea."

Ranboo sits uncomfortably with his head pressed against an iron block above him, arms strapped down to the sides of the wooden chair below him. He feels vulnerable, being basically unable to move and stripped of his crown and helmet. The entire situation feels wrong in so many ways, some of which Ranboo doesn’t even understand himself. He knows Tubbo means absolutely nothing but the best, and he’s grateful for his help, but he doesn’t think the “certified witch doctor” has as much experience in these sorts of things as he implies.

“Don’t be silly, Ranboo!” Tubbo calls down from the top of the wooden structure, making Ranboo jump slightly. “It’s a perfectly _fine_ idea, I read up on it all night, it’s basically guaranteed to work! No issues there!”

Ranboo blinks (internally, of course) and sighs, muttering a quiet, “Oh, boy.”

“So!” Tubbo continues. “Just going over it again! I’m gonna strike the irony block with lightning aaand...well, we’ll see where it goes from there! The shock _should_ go to your brain and screw in those loose nuts you’ve got! Or at least, jolt them back into place!”

Tubbo’s speech dissolves into mutters that Ranboo can’t hear from his position. He feels the anxiety swelling up in his chest and thinks about just how much of a horrible idea this really is. He knows he should just...tell Tubbo that he doesn’t want to go through with this, but Tubbo already seems upset with him and he doesn’t want to make it worse. And besides, how bad could it be? Just a little shock that probably won’t even hurt him that bad anyways, right? It’s passing through the iron block and then his hair, and he’s not sure if endermen are as good conductors as humans are, given the general lack of water.

He hasn't the slightest as to how it will affect his left side, but he supposes that he can just pray that it's nothing too problematic.

"Alright!" Tubbo yells, and Ranboo flinches, clenching his fists in the seat in grim anticipation. "I'm gonna count you down, alright?! Brace yourself, memory boy!"

“G-got it!”

"Alright!! Three!!"

(Tubbo pulls his arm back, and Ranboo shrinks in his seat, almost trying to fold into himself.)

"Two!"

(Tubbo bites his lip in concentration, trying to aim perfectly at the iron block. Dark clouds gather in the sky and a few drops of rain emit from them, falling into the tower and making Ranboo's breathing pick up. He flinches at every drop that lands around him, and suddenly realizes quite morbidly that this isn't going to end well under any circumstances.)

"One."

(Ranboo struggles against his restraints and tries to get out of the seat because _this is going to hurt, this is going to hurt_ _so bad._ )

Tubbo lets go of the trident in his hand, launching it towards the iron block with an almost crazed grin. The weapon embeds itself into the block, and a bolt of lightning leaps from the sky, connecting with the trident and sending it's current through the block and directly into Ranboo.

And the boy has never felt anything hurt more before.

Just like how he feels like his right side is burning if he goes into the water without armor, his _left_ side lights aflame, and he lets out a guttural _scream,_ straining against his leather restraints as burning tears immediately spring to his eyes. The lightning strike is probably well and gone by now (it isn't, the trident is still there, Ranboo never heard it leave the block, _why is the trident still there?_ ) but he feels the electricity bounce around inside of him on the right, and the difference of intensity between his left and right sides is enough to make him dizzy.

The screams make his throat burn, and eventually -- after almost a _minute_ \-- he starts to lose his voice, and only then does he hear the trident return to the hand of its master. The pain still remains, it's all that's left, but it starts to fizzle out -- the current in his body starts to dissipate, and his breathing starts coming in huge heaves to compensate for the sobs leaving his mouth, the tears rolling down his cheeks and dropping off his face burning his right and stinging the sensitive skin on his left. Once the current "leaves" his body (but it's still there, the little jolts are enough evidence of that), he's left with burning underneath the skin of his left that feels like someone's pressing him against an iron, and the normal pain on his right doesn't even begin to compare. He takes in a shuddering breath, trying to make his vision unblurred as he glances down at his arms. They're not as visible on his right, but on his left, there are clear lines going up his forearm -- somewhere in the back of his mind, where there's no pain, he remembers them as Lichtenberg scars.

He hears a voice come from somewhere, and he ignores it, his body jerking violently due to the shocks remaining. All the tension in his body releases, and he slouches in his seat, making no movements besides his shoulders shaking due to his cries. He looks up slightly to see a figure run into the room, mumbling something incoherent as they unbuckle the hybrid's hands and legs from the seat, helping him up and out of the electric chair. He almost falls over, but the person steadies him, letting Ranboo lean on them.

"Oh my God, Ranboo I'm -- I'm _so sorry,_ I don't know what happened, the trident wouldn't come back and I saw you and -- are you okay? Do you feel alright? What do you remember?"

Ranboo's brows furrow as he steadies himself, leaning against a wooden wall of the tower. He wipes his eyes and jerks yet again, almost losing his balance because of the sudden movement. "Thanks for letting me out of that," he mumbles, his breath still stuttering. "I don't -- I don't know how I got in there, do you know what happened?"

He looks at the young boy, who stares back at him with an incredibly confused and intrigued expression. "Well -- what do you mean by that?"

"Oh, 'm sorry," he whispers, straightening and rubbing at his eyes yet again before holding out his hand slightly, ignoring the weak, burning feeling still bouncing around inside of him. "My name is Ranboo."

"Who are you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written on 1/10/21.
> 
> this took me like a combined total of around an hour so it's short and badly paced but i really wanted to write something about this, ehehe. why are most of the chapters in this book ranboo angst? he's my favorite character, why am i doing this??


	7. drinks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Schlatt loses his temper once, and it spirals.
> 
> tw/cw: yelling.

Tubbo isn't exactly sure how he got into this mess.

It probably wasn't his fault -- he was sure his name would be following Tommy's in Schlatt's first course of action. After all, if he so hated L'Manburg's history, then why wouldn't he exile the person that worked so tirelessly to get them the materials needed to win?

But alas, Schlatt wasn't thinking like that. Perhaps he was only called up on that stage as an extra punch in the gut to Tommy, who had definitely been the rudest to Schlatt. Kicking him out apparently wasn't enough.

Oh, how Tubbo wishes he was Tommy right now.

Not that he would want to switch places. No, Tubbo wouldn't wish that even on his worst enemy, let alone his best and closest friend. The endless work hours with little time for food or rest in between, the constant hate-filled speech directed towards his closest comrades, the yelling, the laughing, the ever-present stench of alcohol that grows more pungent every time Schlatt grows near...

Tubbo wrinkles his nose, looking up from the stack of papers in front of him. It's almost like a warning signal for when Schlatt comes around...and it's projected by none other than Schlatt himself.

That small bit of humor found in the midst of his dreary circumstances makes him giggle, quietly and to himself.

"What the hell're you laughing about?"

Tubbo practically gives himself whiplash in turning around, only to be greeted with the intimidating sight of Mister President Jschlatt standing in the doorway to Tubbo's private office, a short, almost empty glass of some brown, definitely alcoholic drink in his hand. He leans against the doorframe, almost propping himself up, and Tubbo can immediately tell that he's drunk. That glass of whatever is most certainly not his first.

Tubbo resists the urge to roll his eyes. Some great ruler he is. But even though Schlatt is... _heavily_ intoxicated, his red eyes are still sharp and piercing.

As if he's fully aware, just off the leash of common sense. It scares the younger boy. Just a little bit.

"N-Nothing, Schlatt. I was just, um, filling out the papers you asked for, see!" Tubbo moves slightly to the side to show the separated stacks of papers on his desk, sorted neatly into piles.

"Oh. Really?" Schlatt asks in an almost surprised tone, and Tubbo nods fervently. Schlatt straightens up, detaching himself from the wall with a slight stumble as he walks forwards, and Tubbo grips the back of his chair to stop his hands from trembling as he moves closer and closer. "And, pray tell, what is so funny about..." Schlatt leans around Tubbo to squint at the document sitting directly in front of him. "Enderpearl trade deals with the DreamSMP?"

"Um, n-nothing, Schlatt --"

"Didn't I tell you to stand up when speaking to me?"

Something in Schlatt's voice mixed with the glint in his unnervingly aware eyes makes Tubbo almost trip over himself in standing, muttering along the lines of, "Yes, Schlatt, you did, Schlatt, sorry Schlatt."

In a matter of seconds, Tubbo is stood only a few feet away from his president, something that feels less and less of an honor and more of a nightmare.

"As I was, uh, saying, there's nothing funny ab -"

Schlatt's glare dissolves Tubbo's speech into incoherent muttering in an instant. He swipes at his nose, sniffing, before putting his free hand on his hip and pacing around the room. The younger boy only watches with bated breath, terrified to make even the slightest of movements.

The room is silent for almost an entire minute, and Tubbo's nose burns from the overwhelming smell of alcohol and what may or may not be cigarettes. It's just an educated guess, though -- he's never seen Schlatt smoke or anything, but he certainly wouldn't put it past him. The guy seems to have all the bad habits.

Again, Tubbo just can't believe what a great president Manburg has.

He's broken out of his thoughts by a sudden sound coming from across the room -- a chuckle. A small chuckle that very suddenly transitions into a fit of laughter, and Schlatt wags a finger at Tubbo.

"Tubbo...you were laughing at _me,_ weren't you?"

Tubbo's eyes widen in panic and he shakes his head harshly. "No, of course not, Schlatt, I would never --"

"No, nonono," Schlatt says, cutting him off with a dismissive wave of his hand. "You don't have to lie to me, Tubbo, I get, really!"

"But --"

"I mean," Schlatt continues as if Tubbo hadn't even spoken. "Who wouldn't laugh at this -- this _mess_ of a president, huh?" He chuckles through his speech, his hand movements becoming wilder, more erratic as he goes on. "You don't think I'm trying to keep t together? Do you know...how _hard_ it is to run a country of this caliber, huh?"

Tubbo doesn't dare respond -- he has no idea whether that rhetorical or not.

Schlatt slams his glass on a side table, and Tubbo swears he can see hairline fractures crawling up from the bottom of the cup. "I asked you a _question,_ dammit! Answer me when I speak to you!"

Tubbo clenches his hands together behind his back and shakes his head yet again. "No, Schlatt, sorry Schlatt, it won't happen again," he squeaks. This is slowly turning into a scene that Tubbo wants out of as soon as possible.

"Y'know, I would laugh at me, too, Tubbo. A worthless failure that couldn't even win a damn election without the help of _Quackity_ _,_ of all people!" Schlatt's laughs sound a lot more forced, as if they're physically hurting him. His red eyes look like those of a predators, darting around the room for something to prey on.

And who else is there in the room but Tubbo?

"A guy who exiled those Goddamn dictators and everyone hates him for it, who's citizens are all planning to betray him behind his _fucking_ back --"

Out of nowhere, Schlatt's hand flies out and sends a stack of papers flying off a desk, and Tubbo jumps but makes no move to clean it up. Not yet.

"Tubbo --" Tubbo's wild eyes, no longer sharp and clear, now clouded with rage and distrust and passion, lock onto the teenager, and he has to stop himself from shrinking away. "Tubbo, you're not gonna betray me, right? You're the Big T, my right-hand man, you wouldn't go running away -- back to Tommy 'n' Wil, right?"

"No, Schlatt, of course not --"

"Tubbo, where do you go?" Schlatt asks, all movement ceasing suddenly as he turns to stare at the sixteen-year-old.

"I...um...p-pardon?"

"Where. Do. You. Go?" Schlatt repeats slowly, running a hand through his hair, dragging a thumb over the ridges of his brown horns. "All of those times when you're suddenly jus'...not here! Gone! Poof. Not in your _office,_ not your _base,_ can't find you _anywhere._ Where do you run off to every day, Tubbo? And don't you _dare_ lie to _me."_

Tubbo's eyes dart around the room. There's no way he can tell Schaltt about being a spy for Pogtopia -- the guy would wring his neck then and there. And he would never, he _could_ never sell his friends out like that. "Uh, um, I, well, y'know, I spend a lot of time in my library -- it's one of my newer projects, so it makes sense that you wouldn't know where it is! And I spend a lot of time clearing out the forest around Manburg like you told me to on the To-Do list!"

Over the course of Tubbo talking, Schlatt had moved to lean over the now cleared desk from earlier, both hands planted on the wooden surface. He stays silent and nods slowly after Tubbo finishes, and the boy knows he fucked up.

"Huh. Tubbo, do you know -- d'you remember what I just told you?" Schlatt asks, and Tubbo's blood runs ice cold.

"W-What did you tell me, sir?"

"I told you not...to _fucking...LIE TO ME."_

Tubbo didn't even see Schlatt pick up the glass, and before he can even register what's happening, it's flying straight at him.

He has no time to move or react, and the glass cup collides directly with his left shoulder, shattering on impact and sending glass flying everywhere, a piece of which cuts the underside of Tubbo's chin. At the same time, the ice cubes that were in the cup fly out, two hitting him smack in the middle of his forehead.

Tubbo stumbles backward with a cry, pressing the back of his right hand to his chin to see if it's bleeding -- it is -- before tenderly clutching his probably bruising shoulder, all whilst looking at Schlatt with an expression of horror and disbelief.

Schlatt looks just as shocked with himself, doesn't seem to know what to feel. A flash of regret rises to his now sharp eyes, but it's quickly smothered by something else as he glances away.

The room is silent for a few moments before Schlatt stiffens, sniffs, readjusts his tie, and gives the shorter boy a curt nod.

"Tubbo."

The door slams shut behind him.

The stunned silence lasts for only a moment longer before Tubbo begins to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finished on 11/9/20.
> 
> i posted this already as it's own book because I was going to continue it, but I'm gonna anymore, so it's unfinished! this was written around the time when schlatt started to be like...controlling and vaguely abusive towards tubbo back in october. i actually think I started it before the festival!


	8. hurts like hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW: Cursing, Wilbur showing the fact that he’s a little bit manipulative. Just a little. (This is an understatement.) I don’t know the terminology for this -- I guess it could be compared to being a White Knight, almost? Wanting people to be dependent on you. Wilbur is a simp.

Pogtopia feels emptier than usual.

Even when Tommy and Techno are out doing whatever they do and Wilbur is alone there, there’s always a bit of lingering warmth, a sort of positive energy that stays behind. Perhaps it originates from knowing that so many people are on your side and are willing to fight with you.

To fight _for_ you.

The ravine is freezing tonight.

Tommy is gone, probably off to ring all the sirens about Wilbur’s plan to Tubbo like he always does, and Techno is off to God-knows-where. Leaving Wilbur completely alone, and completely submerged in his thoughts.

His thoughts, which seem to be stuck to the people that will be present at the festival and what he’s going to do to them. Which, mind you, he doesn’t feel bad about. Not at all.

How could he feel bad about it when they’ve been stabbing in the back ever since he was exiled? Hell, ever since he became president?

Wilbur paces around, subconsciously staying on the wooden Prime Path and turning around on his heel when he reaches the sign. He wrings his hands in front of him as he gazes into the choking campfire that was placed in the middle of Pogtopia.

He sees Fundy.

_I loved…_

Wilbur has to stifle a laugh. Fundy! Fundy, Fundy used to be his boy, Fundy, who he was _so proud of_ after the war ended, who he couldn’t look at without swelling up with pride in its most raw, natural form. Fundy, with his little redstone contraptions and his crayon suit, and his little hat with the full and half moons that Wilbur _distinctly_ remembers showing him how to create.

That hat was a little project between them, a little craft that Wilbur and his boy made after his mom left. _(He still wears it. Why does he still wear it?)_

Wilbur can’t wrap his head around it.

_And I loved…_

Especially considering the fact that he specifically didn’t side with Wilbur, his own _father_ , in the election. First it was siding with his enemies, and then it was breaking off to create his own party, which, granted, hurt slightly less than seeing him on Alex or Schlatt’s side, but it was still a punch in the gut.

Fundy, who lost the election. _Miserably._ Wilbur will never be able to deny the fact that when he saw Coconut2020 in dead last, he felt smug. Justified, even. Even though he knew at that point that he had lost to Schlatt _(I didn’t lose to Schlatt Schlatt_ _cheated_ _he’s a dirty filthy_ _\-------_ _cheater he doesn’t deserve to stand up there he doesn’t deserve to talk to_ _my people_ _)_ , he still felt a twisted sort of satisfaction in seeing his son fail that badly as soon as he broke away.

Fundy _needed_ Wilbur, is what that told him.

_And I lost you._

That’s what Wilbur thought. But that was shattered, shattered into billions of pieces once Wilbur and Tommy were exiled. He couldn’t stop thinking about how his son was doing while he was fleeing from L’Manburg. It wouldn’t leave his mind. He was so scared that Schlatt’s administration would leave him lost, flailing in the dark, because father dearest wasn’t there to prop him up.

And then he heard the news that Fundy was tearing the walls down, and his heart _broke_.

He heard that Fundy had burned down L’Manburg’s flag, and it _shattered_.

But he couldn’t let the thought linger. Building a whole new country was hard work, and he was in the middle of renovations when he was in the call over his earpiece with that bastard Schlatt and Fundy.

 _“Fundy, what_ _is_ _your relationship with Mr. Soot?”_

Wilbur held his breath there for a few moments, his entire body freezing. He could feel the pre-emptive feeling of pride welling up inside of his chest, thinking that Fundy would declare that he was the son of the _real_ leader of _L’_ Manburg. He could also feel something else, something else in the back of his mind.

_“...I was a citizen of the old L’Manburg while Wilbur was in power, and I was there since the revolution. That is all.”_

The anger and rage and sadness that all exploded at once inside of Wilbur rendered him speechless for a solid minute.

He hasn’t thought about Fundy since then.

Wilbur’s eyes flick upwards, away from the campfire, and he steps around the sign for the Prime Path, walking through the shabbier regions of the ravine. He kicks a stone through the tunnels, nearly losing it a few times but ultimately retrieving it from every nook and cranny he got it lodged into, his hands shoved deep into pockets. If he didn’t keep them controlled, who knows what they would start doing?

Nothing good, he’s sure.

Eventually, the rock drops into a small puddle, and he deems it unretrievable. He finally looks up to see where he is…

And he sees Tommy. He knows it isn’t Tommy -- Tommy is far off, frolicking around the edges of Manburg with Tubbo. But he can almost clearly see him standing there -- it only happened about an hour ago.

Tommy’s face stricken with fear, fear that Wilbur saw _easily_ . What leader was bad at reading people? No, Tommy was afraid, Wilbur was sure of that, and he _told_ him, but maybe Tommy wasn’t afraid of what he thought.

Wilbur walks closer to Tommy and his heart starts to race. His eyes jump from place to place on the young boy’s face, blinking hard as he tries to analyze what could possibly be making him so terrified. He can see his mouth moving, but if there’s any sound to the illusion, he can’t hear it. Not over the roar of thoughts swirling around in his mind.

_I loved…_

That isn’t some deep-rooted fear of failure. It isn’t the sort of fear that people have about abstract things, it isn’t that complicated. No, Wilbur deduces that this is a natural, immediate fear.

The face of someone that’s afraid of something _(or someone)_ right in front of them.

Wilbur stiffens before turning around slowly.

_And I loved…_

Wilbur looks himself in the eyes. Yelling at Tommy, yelling at his right hand man, telling him that he will never, _never_ be in a position of power, trying to tell him that L’Manburg could never be retrieved, all while Tommy looks on in silent fear, only speaking up to protest once or twice before immediately being shut down.

Wilbur clenches his fists by his side, his head dropping to stare at the floor as his mind tries it’s hardest to wrap its head around this realization. He stands there, immobile, for a few seconds, a few minutes, maybe an hour, maybe a day. Because his mind can’t process anything. It keeps wrapping back around to one statement, something that’s just so unreal to him that he can barely make sense of the words put together.

 _(Tommy was scared of_ _me_ _.)_

_And I lost you._

Wilbur’s head suddenly snaps up, after weeks, months, eons.

Maybe, just maybe, Tommy being afraid of him wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. Wilbur chuckles, dissolving into full-blown laughs after a few moments. Yes, why couldn’t he see it before? It’s exactly as Wilbur had said, Tommy _doesn’t know what he’s doing._

Wilbur needs to be there to _teach_ him. So what if he kept cutting him off, why should Wilbur let him keep talking nonsense that would ultimately hurt him? So what if Tommy was afraid? Who isn’t afraid of what a teacher or a parent or an older brother could do to them?

If Tommy is on Wilbur’s side, then he thinks Wilbur should have been the leader. Wilbur is the leader of Pogtopia. Tommy _should_ be afraid of his leader. Because if he isn’t, he’ll never learn. He’ll never grow without Wilbur’s help, and he needs to understand that.

They’re going to have a talk once the sixteen-year-old returns.

Wilbur walks directly forwards, swinging his arm and cutting through the illusion of Tommy. As he moves, his pace becomes more frantic, and his arms squeeze around his figure. There’s nothing he can do right now -- it’s not even dark outside (he thinks -- it might be -- how long has he been down here?), so it’s not like he can start wiring the TNT. But that just leaves Wilbur with his thoughts, and each word that runs through his head is like a red-hot poker being skewered through his brain, thinking _hurts_ , oh, how he would love to just do the things that he wants right now!

Marburg would already be ash, and Wilbur would be dead. But isn’t that for the betterment of everyone, for him to be gone?

...not like there would be anyone left to grieve.

His head slowly rises from the ground, and he wipes his face -- he has no idea when (or why) he started crying, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Maybe -- maybe he _should_ go to Manburg. Right now. Set all of its forests aflame, all of the buildings, and try his damndest to murder Schlatt, to wring his neck between his hands as everyone watches, as Fundy tries to stop him to protect his _dear, sweet president_ , as Tommy tries to stop him because he’s a _scared, stupid little boy_ , and Alex, and Luke, and George, and Tubbo and Eret and Sam and Niki and --

And _Niki_.

Wilbur’s eyes readjust to the worse-lit section of the ravine, and as they shift focus, he suddenly sees the L’Manburgian flag, flowing in non-existent winds. He can feel the warm liquid running down his face, but he can’t control it, nor does he try. He knows who will be standing at the foot of that flag, he already knows, but he forces his sight down to match eyes with Niki.

Her smile seems to light up the dreary cave, and her eyes glisten in the light coming from cracks in the stone. Wilbur releases a choked laugh stirred with a sob, and his head falls as he hugs himself even tighter.

_I loved…_

Niki was the only person Wilbur could _never_ control. And it terrified him. Oh, it scared him half out of his wits, but the more he tried to establish a way of being superior to her, the more he realized that he wasn’t at all.

Niki was just about the only person that he was willing to readily admit was better than him. And it isn’t a matter of ego, either. Everyone is dependent on him, but Niki can last on her own. Isn’t it obvious? How open she was about wanting to rebel after Schlatt kicked Wilbur and Tommy? She’s smart, funny, and independent.

It scares him still, but he’s used to it.

_And I loved…_

The sobs make Wilbur’s body shake as he stumbles closer to Niki, looking as bright as ever. A stark contrast to Wilbur, who seemed to have darkness buzzing around his head and filling up his mind. She looks concerned, almost.

Concerned. For Wilbur. Not defiant. Not angry. Not _scared_.

She’s worried for him, and it makes him smile through his tears. He’s never noticed -- well, that’s not true.

He’d have to be blind to not notice how beautiful she looked when she smiled.

Wilbur wants to break into a run, but it’s hard. For whatever reason, he drags along at snail’s pace to her. Perhaps he’s injured, or perhaps he knows that none of this is real, and the moment he steps closer to Niki, she might vanish.

But, standing in front of her, Wilbur notes how realistic she looks. As if he could reach out and touch her. And he does. His hand gently holds her cheek, and he _feels something_. And the sudden relief that flows through him doesn’t allow him to consider the fact that her skin was ice cold, and hw his thumb seemed to just barely phase through the illusion.

There’s no time to think as he tries to give her the largest hug he’s given anyone, and there’s all the time in the world as she dissipates into mist. The flag is gone, the light is gone, and Wilbur is alone once more.

His hands lift to just slightly tug at his hair in frustration, which quickly turns to him grabbing handfuls of it and yanking as he releases an exasperated, _furious_ yell. His rage almost overwhelms him, making his entire body prickle with warmth, before it dissolves into something akin to grief and the most misery he’s ever felt in his life.

His hands fall from his hair as he hugs himself, rocking back and forth on the ground with his eyes wide open, trained on a spot on the ground as tears mercilessly fall from his eyes.

He feels so, so cold.

_And I lost you._

_And it hurts like hell._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written on 10/9/20.
> 
> the DAY AFTER wilbur went insane. i was so excited for this ahsakndajk. i also posted this one on my page as a one shot but I want that sweet, sweet reach and those comments, so I'm putting it here. working on a ranboo one-shot based on my theories about what he is rn. have a nice day!


	9. golem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dream gives Ranboo a reminder.

“I...am a god, Ranboo.”

“That wasn’t being questioned.”

Ranboo, frankly, never thought he’d be having a peaceful one-on-one with Dream. He never thought he’d be able to talk to the man in general, definitely not having a conversation with him. But apparently the godling had different ideas, because he showed up at Ranboo’s doorstep five minutes ago and invited himself in.

At first, he thought it was a mistake -- he does live right next to Techno and Phil, and his little home has the same aesthetic, but the fact that when he saw the taller boy he smiled from under his mask and let himself inside  _ kind _ of destroyed that blissful theory.

“I have something I wanna tell you,” he’d explained, and Ranboo gave him next to no time to make himself comfortable before asking him, “Why are you always in my head?”

Dream looked at him, slightly startled and slightly bemused. “Pardon?”

“Why me? Why are you always in my head, what did you  _ do _ to me, Dream?” He pressed, making sure to stay as far across the room from his as possible. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”

Dream gave him a small smile and gave him the maddeningly vague answer, and Ranboo immediately fired back.

The hybrid sighs as Dream continues, “Let me finish. I am a god --”

“You’re a godling,” Ranboo interrupts. “If you were a god, we’d be so much more screwed, and I’d know it.”

“ _ Ranboo,”  _ Dream snaps, and the boy in question feels a cold hand close around his heart, of fear or of something else, he doesn’t know. “Shut up and let me talk.”

He opens his mouth to respond before clamping it shut and nodding. Dream sighs and runs a hand through his hair in abject exasperation. “As I was  _ saying, _ I’m a god. And frankly, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I can guess. It has something to do with your memories, am I right?”

Ranboo tilts his head to the side.

“You can talk now.”

“Yes, it’s about my memories -- every time I go into my panic room, I -- I hear this voice, and it sounds like you and...it tells me things.” Ranboo takes in a shaky breath, glancing to the side. “Things that I did -- or, no, I didn’t do them, I  _ couldn’t _ have done them.” The hybrid boy looks at Dream with an inkling of hope in his eyes. He knows more than anyone that the man is awful and deserves the worst, but part of him hopes,  _ prays  _ that he'll wave off whatever Ranboo is saying, telling him that it's nothing to worry about, that they've never even talked before now (because they haven't, right? Ranboo doesn't remember ever speaking with him face-to-face...)

Instead, Dream grins. "Well...if the voice is telling you that you...mmm...blew up the community house? Gave me a majority of the TNT I used to destroy L'Manburg? Uh...gave me your memory book? Then you did do them. 100%.”

Under any other circumstance, Ranboo would have felt shattered. He'd probably start panicking, or vehemently denying it, showing any sort of resistance, but at this point? After being in the room so many times and seeing the chest and really thinking over the situation? His shoulders merely slump, and his face falls to the point of him looking like he hasn't slept in eons. "Oh."

“Yep,” Dream says, rolling on the balls of his feet and popping the ‘p.’ He looks relaxed, hands in his pockets and a light smile permanently on his face, though that might just be a normal thing for him. As far as Ranboo knows (which, clearly, is very little), he’s only seen Dream in person twice -- and has only seen him seriously angry once. But when he isn’t...no, he always has a smile. “You are...a  _ very _ helpful character, Ranboo. And honestly, I’m just doing this because I want to see what happens. Seems like it’ll be interesting.”

“Do you ever do anything for any other reason?” Ranboo asks weakly, and Dream’s smile grows and turns wry.

“You know me so well,” he says lightly, and Ranboo pinches the bridge of his nose. “Hey, look, Ranboo, I can get you those missing memories back, alright? God powers --”

“Godling.”

“ _ God powers _ and stuff, y’know?” Ranboo knows he’s playing with fire by doing that, but in his defense, it  _ is _ just a little bit funny. And he isn’t wrong. And -- he really wishes Dream would stop staring at him. “I can make you remember, and you can understand how you did all these things! And…” Dream’s smile suddenly morphs into an unsettlingly wide grin. “You’ll learn what your left half is, too.”

Rambo freezes. “H-How would  _ you _ know it if  _ I _ don’t? That’s impossible, I don’t even know who my parents are, I...I don’t --”

“Ranboo.  _ God powers.” _

“For Prime’s sake Dream, you’re  _ not _ a god!” Ranboo snaps, exasperated. “If you were a god and you were as malevolent and  _ awful _ as you are, the server would be fire and ash at this point! We have a god, it’s  _ Prime _ , and as far as I know, you can’t perform miracles!”

“Oh, but I  _ can _ perform miracles. I’m gonna get you your memories back  _ and _ tell you what your missing half is, something that you don’t know and, frankly, would never find out without me!”

“Well -- what if I don’t  _ want _ to find out?” Ranboo hisses. “No -- no I don’t want to know, okay, I don’t...I don’t  _ want _ those memories back if it shows me helping you, I don’t want to remember doing those things because...because that...I don’t want to remember hurting my friends.” His voice dissolves into a whisper, and he curses himself inwardly as he feels burning tears bubble to his eyes, which he wipes away fiercely as soon as he notices.

Dream stares at him. The black dots representing his eyes bore into Ranboo’s soul and make the already present agitation and anxiety in his chest grow in size before the shorter man sighs and shakes his head, taking a step forward. “Oh, Ranboo... _ I wasn’t asking.” _

The man lunges at him, pressing two fingers against Ranboo’s temple before the boy even knows what’s happening. He lets an inhuman noise fall from his mouth, ender in nature, and his world melts into another, a past world, now forgotten by one of the two who have experienced it.

_ A circle of bright, unnaturally red blood on the floor with symbols drawn in the same liquid on the inside. Ranboo looks at the person walking around the circle, placing small, iron bits inside of certain shapes. Once the final one is placed in front of him, he feels a yank in his chest, a hand closing around his heart, and a bond being formed. _

_ Fighting creepers for hours and hours on end, using Tubbo’s desert, crafting chestfuls and chestfuls and chestfuls of TNT and bringing them to Dream. _

_ Placing TNT in the corners of the community house, on the stairs, in the windows, striking TNT over them and running out with Dream at his side. _

_ A blurred figure walking towards him in the distance -- _

With a roar, Ranboo lurches forward and shoves Dream’s hand off of him, stumbling slightly and pressing his hands against his head, shaking and muttering, “no, no, no,  _ no _ ,” underneath his breath.

Dream finds no pity in his heart, sticking his hands back into his pockets with that same, everlasting grin. “I thought iron golem hybrids died out, really,” he says in an irreverent, light tone. “People used ‘em too much, wars, blah blah blah, dunno how people could use them. No clue what that’s about. But wow, an enderman  _ and _ iron golem. I don’t wanna know how  _ that _ happened.” He giggles, and Ranboo’s brain swims. Everything sounds like it’s underwater, and his left side buzzes as if he was shocked.

“What…” Ranboo croaks, his voice being unable to rise above a whisper before he clears it. He whips his head around towards dream, eyes almost  _ glowing _ with rage as he shouts, “What the hell is  _ wrong with you?!” _

Without as much as a warning, even from himself, he lunges at Dream, probably meaning to punch him or something like that, and Dream doesn’t even flinch.

“Stop.”

Ranboo freezes.

“Back up, Ranboo.”

He takes a step back and straightens, fidgeting uncomfortably before his eyes widen in realization.

“You...you’re making me -- oh my God. Oh my  _ God --” _

Dream takes a slow step forward, seemingly finding this to be of the utmost entertainment. “Take out your sword.”

Ranboo manifests his sword, which is easily one of the, if not  _ the _ most powerful weapon on the server, in his hand. He can feel the heat from Fire Aspect radiating from it, and it gleams in the light of the lanterns scattered around the room. He holds it by his side, waiting for the next order before shaking his head and looking in horror at the weapon in his hand. “D-Dream, what are you --”

“ _ Shut up,” _ Dream hisses, and Ranboo’s mouth closes. It isn’t painful, but no sounds can come from his throat, and the feeling is so weird that he’s almost immediately brought to tears without even hearing the next part of Dream’s commands. “Why don’t you...why don’t you hold the sword up? Push the blade against your neck, don’t hurt yourself, though.”

The blade is hot against the sensitive skin on his neck, and the feeling is odd and unsettling. His arm aches and the tears burning his right side mix together for a dull, lasting pain that keeps him sharp and aware of everything, especially the way Dream slowly stalks towards him.

Ranboo wishes he had the ability to close his eyes, but he can’t, so he just opts for glancing to the side. “P-Please,” he whispers. “Please don’t kill me Dream, what did I do, I don’t -- I don’t know what I did wrong, please, I don’t want to die --”

“You didn’t do anything  _ wrong, _ Ranboo,” Dream coos, tilting his head to the side. “I just think I wanted you to know now…”

Dream closes a hand over Ranboo’s, the one holding the hilt of the sword, and he pushes it further against Ranboo’s neck, and the boy can do nothing to resist against it. The masked man stands on his toes and whispers into Ranboo’s ear, and the hybrid’s blood runs cold.

“You belong to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written on 1/11/21.
> 
> wanted to write something about this in case it becomes canon and I want to brag about predicting it HSHDANSD.


	10. welcome to the panic room.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ranboo disappears amidst a blizzard, and Phil thinks it's about time to find out where he's going.

“Ranboo?  _ Ranboo?” _

Phil scowls into the snow, lowering his gloved hands from being cupped around his mouth and frowning slightly at the sudden disappearance of the enderman hybrid. There would be no reason for him to go outside in this blizzard -- in fact, Phil would’ve assumed that he’d be particularly averse to it, given that snow is just frozen water. It’s stinging Phil’s skin and he’s mostly human, he can only imagine what it’d be doing to the boy’s right.

He thinks about the situation. He’s already looked in Ranboo’s house, all over Techno’s house, the villages, hell, even the igloos, but the kid is nowhere to be found. He has no idea why he’s feeling this concerned since it isn’t unusual for him to disappear like this, but the fatherly half of him wants to know exactly where he’s running off to  _ all the time. _ And it’s not like he just goes and comes back normally -- Ranboo often drags himself back, not wearing any armour or winter wear and being in an almost vegetative state before hiding in his house for the rest of the day. He’s never asked him -- he didn’t find it to be his place -- but leaving in the middle of one of the  _ worst _ blizzards Phil has seen  _ on the server? _ The curiosity is too strong, and the concern is overwhelming -- what could  _ possibly _ be so important?

Phil pulls his last resort from his pocket -- a compass, with a purple needle that’s pulling to the left. Phil narrows his eyes before furrowing his brows together and pocketing the tool. He got another one for Techno, since nobody’s actively looking for him, and when he was making it, Ranboo had quietly asked Phil to make a compass that points to him. When Phil had asked why, he gave some flimsy response about his memory getting too bad at a point where he can’t find his way home, in which case he wants someone to be able to find him.

Phil knew that that wasn’t the reason -- his memory doesn’t even work like that, for Christssake -- but he didn’t want to elaborate, so he didn’t ask. Was it, perhaps, for a moment like this?

But the compass points directly towards L’Manburg -- and Phil has no idea what Ranboo would be doing hanging around there, it’s just a crater at this point. Nevertheless, he wants to find out, so he gets in a boat and starts to make the long(ish) journey back.

Upon arriving at L’manburg’s docks, the compass still pulls itself ahead, and Phil is wondering exactly where this kid could be. It’s still pointing towards a watery area, so he walks along the edge of the shore and frowns when the needle starts to turn. He’s...next to the ocean, where could he possibly be?

Feeling a bit of slight panic, he dons his waterproof armour and plunges into the water, looking around for signs of anyone and taking glances at the compass, which leads him…

Phil squints through the darkish water and frowns, looking at a ring of obsidian jutting out from the natural stone. He swims his way over to it, glancing at the compass that leads him directly into the room. He steps in through the entrance, shaking instinctually even though there's next to no water on him because of his armour. His eyes dart around the room, looking for the missing boy inside -- and he finds him.

Ranboo, water dripping out of his hair and clothes looking as if they were just dunked into a pool and only slightly wrung out, sits with his knees pulled up to his chest in a corner of the little room mumbling something or another under his breath.

As much as Phil would love to look at the messages scribbled in white across the deep purple walls, -- he catches ‘You are fine’ and ‘Dream is the reason’ pretty clearly out of the corner of his eye -- the kid is of far greater concern as of right now. Phil crouches and whispers, “Hey Ranboo, you okay?”

Ranboo doesn’t respond. Phil doesn’t even think he heard him. He pauses and tries to listen to what the boy is muttering, his expression growing more and more confused as time passes.

“Why -- why can’t you just tell me? I can’t remember, I can’t remember, I…...of  _ course _ I want to remember……n-no, you’re wrong, I  _ want  _ to know what I did, I...I need to know……because you won’t  _ tell me -- _ company? What are you talking ab --”

Suddenly, Ranboo’s head snaps up and he screeches, apparently frightened by Phil being there. The older man backs away and holds his hand in front of him in a placating manner, saying, “Calm -- calm down, mate, it’s just me! Jesus Christ!”

Ranboo stares at him with wide, unblinking (obviously) eyes before shaking his head and frowning, muttering, “No, no, Phil, you shouldn’t be here, you -- you aren’t supposed to --”

“No, mate, you’ve been gone for like, two hours, and there’s a blizzard going on -- Ranboo, I thought you  _ died _ or something, you can’t do things like that, Jesus!” Phil takes off his hat and runs a hand through his hair. “What are you even doing in here? Who are you talking to?”

“Nobody,” Ranboo answers far too quickly. Phil feels a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he suddenly has memories of another hybrid responding with something similar at the start of a friendship. “I was just -- I just come here to, uh, think about things, and talking to myself helps me, rationalize, you know?”

Ranboo’s eyes suddenly dart to the side, and his hands crawl up to his head as he starts to mumble again -- “No, I’m not lying, I’m not...I wouldn’t...I’m not going to betray anyone,  _ shut up, shut up --” _

The boy’s shoulders begin to shake and he buries his head into his knees again, his hands starting to tug at his hair. Phil’s face twitches as he remembers something yet again, and he lightly moves the boy’s right hand from his hair, muttering, “Don’t -- don’t pull at your hair, mate, it’s just gonna hurt you more.”

His hands release from his hair, certainly, but he seems to curl up into himself even more, and Phil winces as a loud sob tears from Ranboo’s mouth, and the boy says in a slightly louder tone, “ _ Why won’t you leave me alone, what did I do, I -- I can’t remember, I can’t remember, I can’t...I can’t…” _

The hybrid’s hands gather a bunch of hair up and tugs with a forcefulness that makes Phil yelp, and all he can hear is Ranboo almost  _ yelling _ at himself to remember something. He does  _ not _ know how to deal with these kinds of things well if he’s being completely honest. Not a lot of his kids are around him long enough for him to know if they have panic attacks, and Techno hasn’t had one in years...to his knowledge. The man’s wings tense, and he shifts his position to try and get Ranboo to release the death grip he has on his hair. “C’mon kid,” he mutters. “You’re gonna hurt yourself, Ranboo,  _ please.” _

Ranboo’s head lifts with his hands in Phil’s, and the older man’s heart shatters when he sees the bicoloured tears streaking down and staining his face. “Phil,” he whispers, voice broken and cracking. “He won’t leave me alone, Phil, he won’t go away, make ‘im go away.”

“Kid, who are you talking about?” Phil asks desperately. “Are you -- are you hearing  _ voices?” _

Ranboo nods and croaks out, “It’s Dream. It’s always Dream, it’s Dream, he won’t  _ shut up,  _ Phil, please, please make him stop, he --” Ranboo inhales sharply, freezing, before letting out another breathy, choked sob. “He keeps telling me that I -- that I did things,  _ awful _ things that I can’t even remember doing, but he...he...Phil, I think he’s telling the truth, and I don’t know what to do Phil, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, I didn’t  _ want _ to do any of it, I swear, I didn’t mean to blow it up, Phil, and they’re all going to hate me if they find out...”

Phil’s mind races as the boy rambles. “‘Blow it up?’ Wh -- Ranboo, are you talking about the  _ community house?” _

Ranboo only answers with a deeper sob, and Phil’s feathers bristle with worry. He understands that he’s not getting any information out of him this way, but he wants to know what the kid is talking about -- why does he think the voice is telling the truth? Is it actually a sentient voice, some more of the godling’s unnecessarily torturous bullshit? Or is it just a figment of Ranboo’s mind manifesting itself malevolently? He needs  _ details _ to help, he’s always needed details, but given that he’s definitely not getting any right now and he wouldn’t find it right to just leave the boy like this…

Phil visibly hesitates before shifting slightly and wrapping his arms around Ranboo’s chest. The kid flinches before relaxing, his cries becoming even  _ more _ intense. Phil doesn’t let go and just pulls him closer, and it only takes a moment for Ranboo to shift and hug him back, burying his face in Phil’s shoulder and clutching onto his kimono as if it was the only thing keeping him tied to the earth. Phil’s wings subconsciously widen and spread around the two of them, making something akin to protection.

Phil doesn’t let go even when the grip on his garment becomes uncomfortable, the fabric rubbing almost painfully against his neck. His brain shifts into dad mode and he starts to shush him softly, patting his hair whilst also trying not to upset his crown too much. Ranboo’s cries get softer, and Phil can hear him muttering quiet apologies through his tears. Phil can’t help but scowl slightly -- at this point, he doesn’t think the voice is speaking anymore. He thinks Ranboo might  _ genuinely  _ think he’s angry about the community house.

“Kid, no -- it’s okay, alright? I don’t think you blew it up, and even if you did, I don’t care, Techno won’t care, and none of your other friends are gonna be mad at you, alright?” Phil says all of this in a stern yet soft tone of voice, trying to be reassuring. “Because you’re not like that, I know you wouldn’t do that without a reason, okay?”

“Buh --” Ranboo lets out a shaky exhale. “What if I  _ am _ like that, Phil? What if I was…” His voice somehow manages to get quieter, and Phil has to strain to listen to what he’s saying. “What if I  _ did _ work with Dream?”

Phil’s answer is firm and instantaneous. “Then we’ll figure out why. You’re a very reasonable person, Ranboo, I don’t think you’d do something just out of malicious intent.”

Ranboo stays silent, and so does Phil until Ranboo sniffs one final time and pulls away, rubbing at his eyes. “‘M sorry for worrying you,” he says meekly, and Phil can’t help but chuckle.

“It’s alright, mate. Just wanted to see where you’d run off too -- and I’m glad that I know that this is happening now,” Phil scrunches up his nose. “I have experience with helping voices in people’s heads, Ranboo, you didn’t have to hide this.”

“I didn’t want you to think I was -- I was working with Dream or s’mthin’...” Ranboo whispers, and looks up at fill, his eyes filling up with tears yet again. “It sounds exactly like him, Phil, and he’s always there. It used to only happen when I came in here, but he’s just always there in the back of my mind. He’s taunting me, he’s...he’s waving my memories over my head, and they’re just out of reach, and he keeps telling me to remember but I just  _ can’t --” _

Phil puts a hand on Ranboo’s shoulder and squeezes slightly. “Hey, mate, there’s no rush. You can figure it out when your mind is ready for that, alright?”

Ranboo opens his mouth and inhales as if he was going to respond with something before clamping it shut and just nodding. Phil stands up, and Ranboo follows suit before wincing, stumbling, and almost falling over before Phil manages to capture him.

“My leg,” the hybrid hisses. “My -- I didn’t wear any armour when I swam in here, I -- God, it hurts, Phil, it burns --”

Phil is confused for a moment before it clicks. His right side, of course. “ _ Christ,  _ mate, you can’t be doing that, you ran through a  _ blizzard _ armourless, too?!”

Ranboo nods harshly through his pain, and Phil realizes that this really isn’t the time for reprimanding. He scans through his inventory and places down an enderchest, gesturing at it and allowing Ranboo to dig through and put on his armour. “Alright, do you think you can swim to at least the surface? I’ve got it covered from there, but we need to get out first.”

Ranboo just nods silently, and they both make their exit, Ranboo struggling a decent amount more than Phil, but still eventually making it to the shore, the older man helping pull him out.

“Alright, take off your armour,” Phil says, and Ranboo jumps, startled. “Just trust in the process, kid, armour in the inventory.”

Ranboo looks confused before shrugging slightly, taking off his armour and yelping when Phil immediately picks him up, giving him no warning before taking off into the sky, his large, black wings causing the sand around them to go flying everywhere.

“Christ, mate, as tall as you are, you weigh about as much as a fuckin’ _fox,_ _Jesus.”_ He and Ranboo break out into laughs, and Phil continues to fly, zipping over the ocean at the fastest speed he can muster, partially trying to get back home as fast as possible and partially trying to dry the enderman hybrid off.

Phil thinks back to the room, the bright, white messages scrawled on the dark walls being burned into the back of his eyelids and reminding him of another place, another person, at another time, what felt like eons ago. He blinks hard and shakes his head, trying to force the parallels out of his mind.

He’s not going to let anything happen to this one. Even if it kills him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written on 1/12/20.
> 
> f...luff? does this count as fluff? i don't really know, i actively seek out angst, not fluff. would this be considered as hurt/comfort? maybe? i dunno.
> 
> don't @ me for calling phil's garment a kimono, i went WAY too far deep into bleach lore trying to figure out what it's actually called, and then i gave up. shush.
> 
> i crave borealtwt content.
> 
> i also headcanon that phil just isn't good at comforting people, or at least, he doesn't think he is, which is why most of his 'comfort' is just statements. phil doesn't know how to whisper 'sweet nothings,' he's gonna tell you what he thinks and hope that that helps the situation.
> 
> count the amount of times i made phil say 'mate' in this and multiply it by three. that's the amount of times i *almost* made him say it.
> 
> i wrote this notes section over the span of writing the fic HASIDNKSKF ALRIGHT BYE!! HAVE A NICE DAY!


	11. enderbros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dream finds a kid, and God kin assigns him "the overprotective brother."
> 
> TW/CW: All caps in the notes at the end.

Dream didn’t set out on his little hike expecting to basically adopt a kid, but sometimes the universe assigns you the role of the older brother and you’ve just gotta listen to it. What else can you do?

The night is cold and dark, but Dream knows this trail like the back of his hand. Completely disregarding his (definitely god) powers, he could probably walk down it with his eyes closed and get to the end of it, the base of a large mountain, just fine. He usually goes down it to clear his head, but tonight, he’s just walking to walk. A fun exercise. To take in the sights of the woods. He just runs past any mobs he encounters, not particularly feeling like swinging his arms in a fight, and things are going well until he feels something run into his side in a panic.

The man stumbles slightly, frowning -- at first, he thinks it’s a baby zombie and begins to manifest his sword in his hand -- just for this one -- but then he realizes that it's much too tall for that, being up to his stomach area. They fall over with a small garble, and Dream blinks from behind his mask and lifts it up to peer at the small...child? They’re definitely a child, but they don’t look like any Player Dream has seen and they certainly don’t look like a villager’s kid.

Their face is split into two different colors, black and white, and their hair is switched. There is a too-large crown resting upon his fluffy hair, and he’s in nothing but a t-shirt and shorts -- normal child wear, yes, but it’s late and chilly in the forest. The child sniffs, and Dream immediately bends down, muttering a quiet, “Hey --  _ hey, _ kiddo, are you okay?”

The child -- which Dream now identifies as a boy -- looks up at him with wide, slightly confused eyes, his face stuck in a grimace of pain. It makes Dream knit his eyebrows together in concern as he continues, “I didn’t mean to knock you over, I’m sorry. Are you okay? Where are your parents?”

The boy shakes his head and mutters quietly,  _ “I can’t understand him, he’s not gonna listen, I need to --” _

He cuts himself off by trying to jump up and run away, only managing to rise slightly before stumbling and falling over. Dream only stares in shock for a moment before shaking himself out of his stupor. He supposes he knows what the black half of the child is. Ignoring those implications  _ (he’s not the only one, he’s not alone, there’s another hybrid?) _ he delivers a forced, hushed whisper, saying,  _ “I understand Endspeak too, where are your parents?” _

The boy freezes, his brows furrowing in concentration before his face morphs into a tearful one and he starts to cry even harder, stuttering out,  _ “I -- I can’t remember, I don’t know where -- I don’t know who --” _

Dream wastes no time in pulling the thin, shaking boy into a hug. He has no idea what’s happened to him, and he frankly doesn’t even care at the moment. “Shh... _ it’s okay, it’s okay, calm down, kiddo.” _

The boy doesn’t stop crying, but it grows quieter and quieter until Dream is slightly concerned and takes a look at his face. Only then does the boy mutter out a quiet, weak,  _ “My cheek hurts…” _

Dream lets out a gasp when he realizes and frantically moves to wipe the tears off of the black side of the boy’s face, first and foremost, feeling guilty when he instantly seems to relax more. He wipes the other half of his face and holds him again, his heart dropping when he realizes how thin he is. How did he not notice his clothes drooping off of his body when he first saw him? Dream has no idea how long he’s been out here like this, and he seems clean and well-kept enough, but he definitely wasn’t getting up to normal standards in the food department. Dream can feel his bones pressing against his own body, and his heart twists.

Dream rises to his feet with the boy in his arms, to the kid’s surprise, as he lets out a garbled yelp, and Dream chuckles slightly.  _ “Can I take you home? It’s warm and I have food and me and my friends can help take care of you until we find your parents, okay?” _

The boy freezes in his arms, and Dream is afraid he said something wrong before he closes his small fists around the fabric of Dream’s poncho and whispers quietly,  _ “My parents are dead again.” _

Dream’s stomach drops, but he pushes the feeling down and asks confusedly,  _ “What do you mean ‘again?’” _

_ “They died before, and then my parents found me and they died, too.” _ He answers simply as if it was as clear as day what he was saying.  _ “They said they were my real parents and I believed them because I couldn’t remember and I remember now because my real parents died because of a Player and then the village people found me and --” _ He takes in a rough breath, and Dream begins to walk, his pace picking up as the boy seemingly begins to cry into his shoulder again.  _ “And I believed them because I couldn’t remember. And I’m going to forget again. I -- I always forget, mister, I always forget and then I remember everything just like this and -- I don’t wanna forget again, please, I don’t...I don’t…” _

The child takes in a shuddering breath and stills.

Dream’s panic  _ explodes,  _ and he’s running as fast as he can back down the trail towards his house, knocking by any mobs that dare to approach the godling, who is basically  _ radiating _ with power to make him move as fast as he can without hurting the kid in his arms -- none do, and he makes it back home without much of an issue, save for the frighteningly quiet and unmoving boy in his arms.

He raps his knuckles against the front door  _ loudly,  _ and only a moment later does one of his roommates, Sapnap, open the door. Dream barges in without so much as a “hello,” and Sapnap was going to complain about the rudeness, but the quip dies on his tongue as he notices exactly what Dream is holding.

“Dream -- you said you were going for a  _ walk,  _ not to the Goddamn  _ adoption clinic,  _ what the hell is going on?”

_ “I found this boy on the --” _ Dream blinks, shakes his head, and repeats in English, “I found him on the trail, he bumped into me and said that his parents were dead and -- and then he just passed out, Sapnap,  _ what do I do?” _

Sapnap’s expression darkens and he immediately walks around Dream, pressing a hand against the boy’s forehead (and keeping his blaze rods a considerable distance away) and yelping. “Jesus  _ Christ,  _ Dream, he’s basically on fire -- here, let me…”

Sapnap tries to take the kid from Dream’s arms, and Dream almost snaps at him to back off before realizing that he can’t really do anything right now. A literal god, and he doesn’t know how to help with a fever. The height of impressiveness. He begrudgingly lets Sapnap hold the kid, who he immediately starts to take up the stairs. Dream starts to follow, but Sapnap shakes his head sharply and juts it towards the living room. “Wait here, I need to focus, please dude. I’ll come get you when he’s alright, just...give me a bit.” And then he disappears to the top floor.

Dream plants himself into the couch with a deep frown carved into his face, and he has half a mind to ignore Sapnap’s requests and march right up there to stay with the boy until he knows he’s okay, and then decides against it. Whatever will help.

He pulls his mask back over his face (for no other reason besides comfort) and links his fingers together, his mind trying to process everything that just happened and failing miserably.

He waits for what feels like an eon before Sapnap comes downstairs, looking tired as all hell but satisfied. He gestures to the stairs, and Dream is on his feet in less than a second, bolting past Sapnap and running into his own bedroom, which is where he assumed Sapnap put him.

And there he lays, curled up in a ball underneath a blanket, sleeping, visibly breathing, and looking far more relaxed than he had before. Dream’s shoulders relax, too -- he hadn’t even known that they were tense all that time -- and he steps closer to the kid, resting a hand on his hair and tilting his head to the side slightly before letting out a deep sigh.

He has no idea how long he’s there until Sapnap basically drags him out of the room by his poncho (much to Dreams chagrin) and shuts the door softly behind him, pulling him down the hallway a bit farther before whisper-yelling, “Are you going to explain what is going on or am I going to have to sit here wondering why you came home carrying a fever-ridden basically starving  _ Enderman hybrid child?!” _

Dream blinks. “I already explained,” he says dumbly, not particularly seeing the issue. “I found him on the trail and he passed out after saying his parents were dead. What, did you expect me to just leave him there?”

“No, I just --” Sapnap sighs, running a hand through his hair. “‘M sorry. It was just a surprise. He’s really sick -- well, no, not sick, he just had a fever for a minute that hit him  _ really _ hard, I have no idea what that was, but it’s gone now. He’s okay. Kind of afraid of what to expect when he wakes up.”

“Same,” Dream murmurs. “Hey, where’s George? Is he just --”

“Sleeping,” they say at the same time, and they both break out into quiet sniggers. “George is gonna flip tomorrow morning, endermen  _ hate him. _ Do you think the kid will --?”

Dream visibly has to suppress cackles at the idea of this small, no more than eight-year old being rude to George for no perceivable reason. It’s a joke that endermen have some biological component that all make them despise George, but taken to that level? It’d be hilarious. “If he does, I’m adopting him, no questions asked.”

Dream has several questions, actually. But the adopting part isn’t that much of an exaggeration.

Can you even adopt someone as a brother?

Dream shrugs inwardly. Not that he cares about what actual laws say, it’s  _ his  _ server and  _ he  _ gets to make the rules. And besides, they’re both enderman hybrids -- they’re basically already brothers.

He’ll keep telling himself that until his mind finds an actual justification for the way he feels. For now, they’re just...enderbros, he guesses. Enderbros. It sounds nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GIRL HELP
> 
> IM PROCRASTINATING
> 
> THIS MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL AND IM SUPPOSED TO BE WRITING AN ESSAY BUT I FELT LIKE WRITING DREAM NOT BEING AWFUL FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE SO HERE HERE HERE TAKE IT AND GOODBYE!!! HAVE A NICE DAY! :D


	12. blue diamond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The egg doesn't like Tubbo. This leads to a bit of an odd effect.
> 
> TW/CW: there's just a lot of pain in this one, I felt compelled to add the graphic descriptions of violence tag here -- there isn't much actual violence, but it's heavy, i guess. caps lock used!

Tubbo _definitely_ shouldn’t have taken off his hazmat suit.

It’s not like he didn’t have a backup plan if things went horribly wrong -- a contingency plan, as he had called it. But it's a little hard to remember what that was even supposed to be when he's feeling more emotions at once than he's ever felt in his life before.

The garbled words that Echo within his mind as soon as his helmet is off are loud and resounding enough to knock him off of his feet. His breath hitches as his brain slowly starts to translate, the English overlapping with the egg's speech creating an even more overwhelming experience.

And things it _says,_ they terrify him, it's as if every single negative thought or feeling or emotion that he's _ever_ had rises to the surface and pushes out to the forefront of his mind. Things he never wanted to remember or think about again are forcefully yanked into the spotlight, and if he wasn't the most resilient kid on the planet, aside from Tommy, it probably would have broken him immediately.

But it doesn't.

_Ṯ̸̏o̵̟͐m̵̱m̴͍̾y̵̟͝ ̶͕̋h̵̆ͅa̵̢͘t̵̤͐e̵̥͘ś̶͉ ̸͎̊ÿ̶͉́o̷͕͘ų̸͛.̸̠͛_

It's the first thought that comes, it's the loudest, and it's the most painful. It repeats over and over and over and Tubbo feels the tears rising to his eyes and sting and burn more than they usually would. They don't stop after that.

_D̴̓͜r̷̘̆e̷͈̓å̶̙m̷̥͛ ̵͉̌c̴͓̓o̶̞͛ṷ̶̒l̵͖̓ḓ̸ ̸̟͝ḧ̴͕́á̴̜v̵̧͊e̵̟̓ ̸̳̃k̴̠̒i̴̱͐l̶͔̇l̸͇̓é̸͔d̸̥̅ ̷̤͠y̴̛̪ó̵̪u̸̳͠.̸̥͛_

_̶̰̊D̷̪͝ṙ̵͎ě̷͕a̵͖͆m̵̥̆ ̶͎w̷̫o̸̪͝u̵̩l̵̩͒d̵̝͗ ̵̯̓h̴̢̽a̶͎̓v̸͆͜e̸̠̓ ̷͎̽ḳ̸̈ỉ̸̗l̶̗̋l̵̞͝e̵̺̕d̵͈͐ ̸̥̏ỳ̵̠ő̸͓u̸̞̓.̶̭̌_

_̶̫̒D̷̖͝r̸̞̿ḛ̴̓a̴͍̕m̴̪͗ ̸̝͊s̶͈͑h̶͍͋ǒ̵̳ǘ̶̲ļ̶̂d̶͉̔ ̴̺͊h̵͎͋a̴͈͠v̵͎̈́ḙ̵͗ ̶̺͒k̴̰̍i̸̺͂l̴̠̏l̴͕͘e̵͍͝d̶̺̐ ̶͙̾y̷̭͑o̶̺̽u̵ͅ.̶͉͛_

_̶̖̿T̶̠͌e̷͈͆c̴̱̎h̴͔͠n̶͔͋ő̶̤ ̸̟̽s̶̳̉h̵͍̔o̸̬̊ū̴̧l̷̲̾d̸̮́ ̵̪̌h̷̉ͅa̴̮͘v̶̤͆e̵͕̔ ̷͉̍k̷̨̎i̸̯̓l̵͉͒l̴̾͜e̸̢̕d̶̙̊ ̸͉̏y̸̮͝o̴̲̊u̵̘͐.̴̲̃_

_̴̝̌W̴̙̌i̷̪̚l̸̗̂b̸̟̍u̸̥̾r̶͎̎ ̶̯͂w̶̖͑a̵̹͂n̷̗͘t̵̮̚e̷͇̊d̷͙̈́ ̸̫̑y̵̢͆o̶̢͛ū̸̢ ̸̙t̷̨̆ō̶̰ ̴̮͝s̶̪̍ů̷̧f̶̣͑f̶̡̆e̷͓̚r̸̘̓.̵̢̾_

_̴̡͐Y̷̻̓ò̶̘u̷͙͗ ̴̌͜h̵̙̑ủ̷͓ŗ̷̈t̸͉̓ ̸̥̃e̷̗͘v̷͈͠ḙ̷r̸̘̍y̵͓͛ọ̵͑n̶̳̊e̴͕͆.̵͔̋_

_̷̞̽Y̸̛̝ó̷̢u̷͔͗'̴͌͜ĺ̶̲l̵̨͌ ̵̰̀k̸̋͜ĭ̵̥l̷͓͂l̴̛̹ ̵̣͂e̸̫̐v̶̢̅ě̸̼ŕ̵͚y̶̱̆o̴̤͂n̸̗̓ẻ̶͍.̵̘̆_

_̶̯̈́Y̴͍̿ȯ̵̤u̴͎̾ ̷̤͘h̵̰͗u̶̡͗r̶̫̊t̵̤̐ ̸͖͊T̶̼͆o̶̳͂m̶̞͆m̴̹̋ŷ̵̯.̶̘͝_

_̶̛̤S̶̩͝c̸͓͆h̴͉̚l̴̟̾á̵̳t̷̡t̸̢̅ ̷̕ͅh̵̬̀ų̷̿r̴̠͑t̶̗̀ ̴̹̕y̵̤̏ô̴̖ư̶̗.̸̠͐_

_̷̩̊Ÿ̶͇o̴̝̚u̵̜̔'̴͙̍ŕ̷͎e̷̥͒ ̸͙w̵͈̽ȅ̶͎a̵͇k̴̛͙.̵̺͆_

_̸͖̿Y̵̳͆ọ̶̋ų̶̍'̶͍̅r̷̼é̴̜ ̷̗̄u̴̖̎s̵͕̒e̴̜͋l̶͖̋e̷̢̍s̷̖͐s̴̩̋.̶̼̓_

_̶̬̋Y̴̥͝ȏ̷̡u̶̫̇ ̷̹͝s̷̛̼h̷̟̅o̸̠̕ṵ̷́ḽ̷͠ḏ̷́n̶̯͌'̶̬̈t̵̙͒ ̶̲̒b̶̭̑e̸̩͗ ̸̲͒a̸͕͊l̷̹̑l̴͓̈o̶̪̿w̷̧͊ė̶͓d̵͎̿ ̶̥̚ẗ̴͈o̵̙͆ ̸̝̓h̵̗̎ŭ̷̹r̶͓̀ṭ̶́ ̴̛͙ą̴̅n̶̹͆y̸̳͠ ̸̹̃m̴̰̓o̸̡̓r̶̢͆e̵̹͠ ̴͕͂p̷̠̕e̴̺̕o̶̰͝p̴̬̈l̷̲̅e̶̫̅.̵̡̐_

Tubbo doesn't register the first sob, nor the second or third or many after –- it takes him a few moments of the largest tears he's ever seen falling from his face in large, visible globs before he realizes just how messed up he is. His fingernails dig into the front of his shirt as his entire body tremors with each wai, his eyes burning to the point where some of the tears might actually be from the pain.

His vision swims and morphs into nothing but a sea of red and gray. He hears something, a different voice among the noise, calling his name. He feels a hand on his shoulder, and from its stems a sizzling, hot burn that makes him scream and makes the voices louder and louder and louder and --

_Ṭ̷̨̳̌̈͌̄Ȯ̴̡̞̱̳̀̌͋M̴͕͇̗̉Ḿ̷̼͖͓Y̷̢̺̺̮̎͘͠ ̷͍̳̈́͜H̷̭͛̔̋͝A̴̝̦̗̘͛T̴̨̠̬̜́̏̋Ĕ̶̺̜̥͘S̷̙̬̘̘̒̒ ̵̧̽͒ỵ̸̔͌̔o̵̩̳͋̏u̴͕͙̹͝.̸͈̩̔̑̈ͅ_

_̸͉͕̼̄Ţ̷͇͚͕̄̈́̋O̴̳̭̙̭̽̃M̷͍̟̀̈́͜͜͝M̶̮͌̃͑͝Y̸̰̖̆̓̇̈́ ̶̲͑͗̾͠w̴̯̑i̸̳̭̲͊̒̍̉s̵͔̹̈́̈́͆h̸̥̭̒̿ë̷̤s̴̡̾͆̈́͘ ̵̗͘y̴̧̭̍̆͠o̸̰͐u̸̙͈͒̈́ͅ ̸͉̃̂͠w̴̩̜̲̟̃͝ḛ̴̹̠̗͑r̴̭͎͌̎̾̒ĕ̵̲̒̇ ̸̩̬̺͗͒̕D̴̈́̆̔ͅĔ̷̢̞͖͐̌A̷͖̋̈́̂͋D̸̲̗̝̔̈́̿.̶͓͉̝̽͆͜_

_̶̨̈́͆͠T̸̥͓͘͠Ǫ̵̛̖̭M̶̰̱̍̇̎M̶̥̤̔͠Y̴̠͊͗ ̵̠̌W̴̭̯̰̉͋Į̶̢̮͆̀̂̈͜S̴̛͙͖̫̊̑ͅH̵̦̬̑̒Ë̴̢̛́S̴̮̩̣͂̕ ̴̱̬͚̞̎̂̊h̴̲̣̤̓͝e̵̢̮̮̞̍̾ ̸̰͕͔̈́̍̅c̵̖͔͎̆̇̆o̶͕̰͋͠ų̵̯͈͗̓̉̉ĺ̶̺̓͌d̴͕̘͑͝͝ ̵̫͌k̴̮̪̙̠̐̊͝i̵͇̿̊͒ļ̷̧̖̏̾͋͂l̷̪̻̟͚̒̍ ̷͉̻̣̋y̴̜͚̫̠͘o̶̝̱̫͉͛̑͌u̸̝̞̤̅.̸̘̯͖̪́͐͝_

_̶̟̯͈̆T̶͉̝͒̐O̶͈̼̊M̷̬̣̥̄̆͐M̴̙̖̿͐ͅY̷̪̮̾͂́͛ ̵̡̠̮̺̄͊̔̕w̴͇̣̋̀i̴͖͉͑͌͌̓s̸̥̣̀ͅh̴̨̞̮̲͆͗̄̿ẽ̸̢̯͙s̸͙͇̖̀̚ ̴̦̻̮͍̾̄͊D̷̰̦̺͉̈R̴̨̢̹͈͘Ě̴͙̜̥̩͐Ả̶̡̘͇͜M̸͖̕ ̸̻̒k̶̘͇̓̓͂͠i̴̼̐̌l̵̗̮̼̅l̷̖̝͝e̶̛̻̤̻̳d̵̪͖̮̤̽̔̈́͝ ̸̮̱̼̋̍̔̏y̶̝͂̕ó̸͔̹̺̓͐͠u̴̘͚̓.̶̬͉͖̿͌͝_

_̸̖̥̎͆̇͝T̴̮͌̕Ö̵͔̩͕́͑̌̈́M̶̟̯͂͜M̸͚̄͗Y̶̡̰̼͛͑̾ ̷͕͎͌͌ņ̶̠̈e̷̯̍̓̒͝v̴͚̓̽̐̊ẽ̷͓̺̑͘r̷̲͍͐ ̶̝̆l̴̪̱̘̩̇̋̒į̶̠̫̃̉̇k̵̙͓̣̺͆e̵͚̹̽̕d̸͓̯̤͌͂ ̸̻̳̥̦͌͆̓ŷ̵̡̥͎͠o̶̢̐̈̊u̶̥͋̓̒.̵̡͉̒͋͜_

_̶̧̹̑̾̑T̷͉̬̑͠͝͝O̶̧̹̜͛̀̽M̶͎͓͈̏M̸̡͌̔̈Y̶͈̻̗͙̾͋͗̇ ̴̢̀̓Ṉ̷̢̛͇̋E̶̗̫̥̐V̶̧̖̟̅E̸̳̅̉͊͋R̸̢̖̱̼͠ ̴̤̇͝͠l̶͍͖̜͌̄̽i̴̛͙͗̇̾k̴͖̣̈́̉́e̵̙̯̓̀͐͘ḑ̸̨̑̈́̾͜ͅ ̸̡̗̰̦̀̈́̾y̶̩͑ö̸͉̮́̑̇͝ữ̵̰.̴̢̜̌_

_̵̂T̷̡̛̤̝̈́͑Ö̵͈͓̩̓̍Ṁ̷̢̺̟̯͝M̶̺̙͓̽̀Y̶͈̪͗ ̶̯̀̽̊͋N̴͇͂̍̕̕Ḗ̸̮̜͔V̸̢̫̝̗̆̐E̷͍̖͊̇R̷͓̎ ̴̟̱͛̈́̇̃L̴̘̬̒͜I̷͖̿͗͜K̶͚̣̄̇ͅE̸̯̘̳̜͊D̶̖̰̜͋͑͐ ̴̜͓̽͘ͅY̴̗̭͙͎̅O̸̹̱̻̦̓̚U̷̻͊̈͠.̵̦̖̗̝̎̌_

Tubbo's knees buckle, and when Tommy catches him from falling, his grip on the shorter boy's arms only burn and make the voices louder. He takes in gulping breaths between the sobs that rack his body and make him physically unable to form any coherent thoughts of his own.

And then it lets up. It isn't gone by any means, but he can hear Tommy frantically calling his name as his scorching touch maneuvers to his hand. Turbo ignores the pain and the steady crescendo of the voices and burns and squeezes it back.

"Tubbo, when I say so, I am going to lead you out of here, okay, we need to run, _right fuckin’ now.”_

 _Run?_ Tubbo wonders hazily. _Why do we need to --_

He looks up, and he sees through blurry tears Bad’s glowing white eyes and Ant’s sharp purple ones.

A sharp pain makes him cry out and he collapses yet again, this time Tommy being unable to catch him fast enough. His knees collide forcefully with the particularly rough vines at his feet, and he has to keep himself from falling over completely. He feels light-headed and dizzy from the crying, and yet the freakishly large tears show no signs of stopping. Some far-off, untouched, secluded part of his brain considers drinking it before he shrivels up like a raisin from the lack of water.

Tommy suddenly grips Tubbo’s arm and yanks him to his feet, sending in another, far more intense swarm of voices through his mind, and he can’t stop himself from wrenching his arm away with a stumble, shrieking, _“Tommy stop touching me please God it_ _hurts_ _\--”_ and taking in a shuddering breath. He doesn’t get to see Tommy’s reaction because the voices immediately spike in volume and tone --

_H̶̛͔̤͙̽̚̚ͅê̷̪̐͘ ̴̧̰͍̿̌̾t̴̛͉͈̏͘h̷̝̪̀ͅi̵͕͌n̶̹̼̿͌̽̕k̵̤̐̓͠s̸͕̓̈́ ̷̄͒̕ͅy̵͈͆̂ọ̶̃͝ȗ̴̧̡̻͚͒̽͘’̸̏̅̅ͅr̷̩͆̒͠e̷̲̬͗̓͂́ ̴̢͇̩̕ǎ̷͚̄͊ ̸̨̩͈̾F̵̨̨͛̎̈́R̴̝̩̝̙͊̈E̷̠͔̯̍̔Ḁ̶̢̗̰̑̋K̸̲͚͔̅͒̋.̴̘͙̺̒_

_̵̘͍̟̝̽Ḥ̴̳͉̯͆̊̿ȇ̷̡̛̩͉̰͗ ̷͈̖̫̎͠ȟ̷̢̫̗̩̐a̷̱̻̻̽t̵̘͉̙̽e̸̯̱̗̾̇̋͋s̶͍̲̹̲͌ ̵̠͈̖̘̍̊y̸̼͖̰̩͆o̷̝͋ȕ̸̬̗̮ ̸͙͕͐̽M̴̧̗̝̮̈̚O̴̫͍͍̪͘R̴̨͕̚Ȇ̶̤͘.̶̨̫̈͜_

_̸͈̱̀͋̊͠H̸̤͂̃͝e̴͎̦̿ͅ ̷̢̲͎̘͑͋͝w̵̧̪͔͛̔ͅä̵̻͜n̶̙͐ṯ̷̅̾͝͠s̸̘̗͖̃̎̽ ̵̘̮̂͋͜ẙ̵̟͈ǒ̴̢̞̲̦͗̔ȕ̵̩͈̞̩͝ ̸͉̺̫͆̐͘̚͜D̷̢͐̏̇̕Ĕ̷̢͍̄A̸̙̓͐̌D̵̤͒̔̀.̵̤͚̘̫͌_

\-- and he clamps his eyes shut and presses his hands against his ears, his elbows coming together as he lowers his head and somehow cries even harder.

He hears Tommy shout and his head snaps up to see the sixteen-year-old on the ground a few feet away, Antfrost standing menacingly above him with a trident in hand. Tubbo takes a weak, wobbly step towards his best friend before suddenly hearing blocks being placed behind him. He turns around and is met with a small obsidian box with BadBoyHalo standing next to it, who juts a thumb towards it and says, “Get in.”

His mind ignores Tommy’s and his own exclamations. His body jerks forward against his will and he trips, tumbling gracelessly into the small box made for him. He sits in defeat as obsidian grows around him, encasing him completely and leaving him in total darkness. He would have been too weak to get out in time anyways.

Everything, even his mind, is silent for just one moment. The eye of the storm.

And then it stops only being negative _thoughts._

Bile rises in Tubbo’s throat as he’s hit with a wave of nausea, the acidic feeling tearing at his already burning his windpipe and feeding the general pain crashing over his body more...as if it needed the help.

Fatigue overwhelms the boy and he starts to slide down the walls of the box, his arms pressed against each other in front of his face and his eyes wide open as he trembles. His breath comes in hiccups and his chest aches for a break, his eyes burn from his salty tears being mixed with the spores in the air and his limbs are heavy. (He doesn’t even notice the small beam of light that suddenly leaks from a tiny, tiny hole in the obsidian.)

Unfortunately, that isn't the worst of it, no. The worst of it causes him to start screaming.

Suddenly and with no warning, Tubbo feels a sort of pain that he'd hoped, he _prayed_ that he'd never have to feel again -- the unmistakable feeling of being ripped apart from the inside out by a firework. And this time, it lasts. It lasts for so much longer than it should.

Tubbo's screams rip and claw his throat, the phantom pains (though they don't feel "phantom" at all) burrowing into his chest and stomach and tearing everything inside two pieces without any sort of reservations. His hands crawl up to his hair and yank at his brown locks, trying to redirect some of the pain up there or distract himself, but it just makes it worse. He can't seem to let go, though, for the feeling of being in control of at least _some_ of this pain is enough to make him subconsciously unable to let his hair alone.

The pain hardly stops there, though. His arms and legs begin to collectively lose feeling, being left with nothing but a numb static and the feeling of his entire torso being exploded and having his face completely scorched off. And then the burning comes, and Tubbo nearly passes out from this sudden feeling that encompasses him, but his brain won't (can't) let him rest.

And as the pain and the burning and the scorching and the ripping and the tearing and the stupid fucking _voices_ continue, Tubbo can vaguely feel the egg pressing for more to hurt him with, more to _break_ him with. He can feel the vines wrapping around his brain and pushing them into the folds, and then it's shut off and is immediately replaced with something else.

Tubbo starts to scream but is silenced. He can feel -- he can feel it, it's _there,_ there's _no way_ it isn't there -- a cold blade pierce his chest and go straight through, cutting through his lungs none-too-quickly, and exiting the back all at a steady pace. He chokes on blood that isn't there, and he faintly thinks that this is the worst of it before the vines press further and he remembers that the sword had Fire Aspect.

("Why did he go quiet, why did he _FUCKIN'_ go quiet, Bad?!"

The man in question smiles and shrugs, throwing a piece of obsidian back and forth between his hands. "You hear him screaming, Tommy? Do you hear him crying, begging for help?" As if on cue, Tubbo starts to scream again, louder than it had been before, and Tommy's heart lurches. He lunges at Bad, who only takes a single step backward and laughs as Sam grabs onto his shirt to stop him from doing anything he'd regret. Bad revels in the sorrow. His grin is sadistic and wide. "That's what we want to hear from you, Tommy."

Tommy shakes his head and takes a step away. "You're crazy."

"All must love or hate the egg, Tommy."

"No," Sam mutters. The man in green and gold had been looking conflicted up to that moment, but he seems to come to a conclusion. "I can't let you get hurt."

He grabs the hem of Tommy's shirt and starts to pull the boy, who immediately starts to kick, thrash, and scream bloody murder. _"WHAT THE HELL, YOU RACCOON-LOOKING FUCK, LET ME GO!"_

"This isn't a _joke,_ Tommy!" Comes the rushed and exasperated reply. "You and Tubbo are on one life, I'm not taking these chances!"

"No-No! I'm immune, I'm immune to the egg, dickhead, we're not just gonna leave Tubbo behind!"

"I'm not leaving him behind," Sam snaps, making his way through the tunnel back, Bad and Ant on their heels. "I'm getting _you_ to safety, first."

"No, Sam, stop it, seriously, _please,_ Tubbo is more important --"

 _"_ _Shut up,_ don't say that, I'm getting you out of here right. Now."

Tommy, with no response to that, Resorts back to thrashing against the wardens will to no avail. He curses -- he curses Sam, he curses Bad, Ant, the egg, the vines, and he curses himself.

Sam has to come back for his other half.)

Tubbo's wails of agony have since died down to incomprehensible mutters, whimpers, pleas to a god that isn't there. The pain has been fluctuating, switching between the worst he's ever felt, combining them, isolating certain parts of them as if his nerves are playing a mix-and-match game.

The only thing that is constant is the tears. Not the crying, but the tears. If he dies from nothing else, it'll be the dehydration that gets to him. Though something tells him that if he runs out of tears, The Crimson won't hesitate to use something else that is...readily available.

The Crimson gets bored. Very easily. And once it's exploited all of Tubbo's body and mind and broken them down to but dust on the road after God-knows-how-long, it needs something else. It pokes and prods and infests, and Tubbo is positive that he can feel its thorns growing from the vines in his brain.

And then he feels the glee of finding a new plaything, and then he feels nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

The voices leave, the pain evaporates, but it continues. He can't feel the obsidian or the vine beneath his feet, he can't hear anything at all, not even the high-pitched ringing that usually accompanies one in silence. The tears still run down his face, but he can't see them.

There is nothing. The last voice he heard echoes around in his mind is the only thing he can physically think about, clearer than any of the other statements:

_T̴o̸m̶m̵y̷ ̶a̶b̴a̷n̸d̴o̸n̶e̶d̶ ̸y̵o̸u̷._

And Tubbo's spirit starts to shatter also.

The quiet is maddening, the lack of feeling, soul-crushing, and the seventeen-year-old finds himself doing anything to try and regain his senses. He screams until his throat is raw and he hears none of it. He raps his knuckles against the hard rock until they bleed and feels no blood running down his forearm. He kicks, he punches, he yells, he knocks, and after all else, he cries.

He cries for minutes, hours, days, eons. He cries until he truly hears nothing, not even the echoes of The Crimson itself. He cries until exhaustion starts to take over and his eyes droop, but the egg keeps him conscious. He cries for Tommy. He cries for Sam.

He cries for a savior.

He cries until he hears vines crunching underfoot.

The boy, as soon as the sound registers (sound, how long has it been?), jolts up from his position and begins to scream, his voice painful to use, gravelly and cracking. Tubbo remains uncaring. "TOMMY? S -- TOMMY? SAM? I-I'M IN HERE, PLEASE!" His voice breaks, and all he can manage is a painful, weak, "Help me…"

Tubbo watches with the first bit of Hope in his heart as the obsidian block in front of him begins to break, slowly but surely. He has to tell Sam to lock those psychos away in prison, he has to get Tommy to destroy the egg, the server needs to be _aware_ of this monstrosity. He'll get help as soon as he can.

The block breaks, and Tubbo looks up.

BadBoyHalo looks down, a playful smile dancing eyes dark lips as his amused, blank eyes bore to Tubbo's broken and terrified ones.

"Hello, Mister Ex-President," says the demon mockingly. "Were you expecting me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooo how we feeling about the egg not liking tubbo? :D
> 
> I don't know what tags to add aside from like...i dunno I speedran this in a single three-hour-long sitting. it was great. love tubbo.
> 
> EDIT: I used speech-to-text to write a LOT of this so if any of the words are weird then I'm sorry jsakdjk
> 
> (I'll put the zalgo translations in the comments if anyone asks)


	13. white diamond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ranboo has a nightmare, and phil and techno are there to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i find it funny when people say "sorry this one-shot doesn't make sense" and they're just saying that because they're self conscious but it actually makes perfect sense -- this doesn't make sense. at all. ranboo shouldn't be upset by the dream voice in his idleboo state -- in fact, he'd probably find it cool from what we've seen in canon? but I didn't realize it until halfway through and I just wanted to write this bc I thought the concept would be cool -- you'll see what I mean by concept.
> 
> lower-case is all on purpose! my brain decided that today is a lower-case day!
> 
> a bit of a silly fic, even though it sounds serious! enjoy, please, I hate this with my entire being fkjdsfkjds

angered enderman screeches were _ not _ something techno expected to hear in the middle of the night.

or rather, he'd normally expect them if he or phil was outside, but they aren't, and ranboo obviously never angers endermen and is probably sleeping at this time of night. which probably means that someone is out there and accidentally looked at one in the eyes.

techno spares a glance at phil, who was reading a book but now looks as alert as ever. the piglin hybrid stores away the item he was using to sharpen his sword before getting up to investigate perfectly in sync with his friend without as much of a nod of understanding.

the cold, arctic wind bites at techno's face and whips his ears whilst the snow nips at his cheeks. he grimaces and squints through the almost=blizzard surrounding them. he considers shifting into his more pig-like form just for protection right then and there, but ultimately decides that it'd be a waste of time. the enderman noises continue to somehow carry over the wind, coming from the left, and techno slowly starts to realize that they sound more distressed than angry.

suddenly, a figure starts to emerge from the snow, and techno's mouth falls slightly agape in disbelief as he recognizes exactly who it is.

"i -- is that ranboo?? why isn't he wearing a coat, is he  _ trying _ to leave his dead body on my property?"

“shut -- techno, no,” phil says, shoving his shoulder and squinting at the boy in the distance, who stumbles through the snow and clutches the arms of his suit as he walks as fast as mortally possible to God-knows-where. and the sounds, the enderman sounds, they follow him, they’re  _ coming  _ from him, and techno is properly confused. he’s never heard the hybrid make noises like that aside from when he accidentally scares him and he lets slip a  _ vwoop _ of surprise, but this is totally different. he sounds like someone angrily looked him in the eyes for like, five whole minutes, and it hurts his ears, just a little bit.

“ranboo!” techno calls out gruffly, and the hybrid’s head snaps up to the two people standing on the balcony, seemingly  _ glowing _ in the night. techno can hardly see his facial expression -- he doesn’t have his glasses on, and he doubts he’d be able to see it anyways -- but he can feel phil’s wings bristle with worry. he turns to the older man with a slight frown. “phil, i ‘unno what’s going on here, i-i haven’t been payin’ much attention to his goin’ abouts…”

“he’s crying, mate.” phil whispers, and techno looks at the boy in the snow and back to phil incredulously.

“how’d you --?” techno shakes his head. “right, bird eyes, okay. RANBOO?” he calls for the boy even louder, and he doesn’t respond and starts to walk away even faster. phil brushes past techno and rushes down the stairs, and techno grips the railing as he watches. his ear twitches nervously -- he didn’t even realize that he was slipping out of human mode, but he doesn’t particularly care.

he watches as phil rests a hand on the boy’s shoulder and guides him towards the house with little resistance. techno backs away as the pair starts to come up the stairs, and his eyebrow shoots up when he notices ranboo’s shoulders shaking. he can’t see his expression, as his head is down, nor can he hear what he’s saying, but he does his best to help and holds the door open for the two of them before shutting it behind everyone, effectively locking out the cold and the snow.

ranboo falls onto the couch, and techno picks up his glasses and pushes them onto his face messily, finally catching a glimpse of ranboo’s expression. he sucks in a breath when he notices the greenish streaks going down his black side. he doesn’t know too much about ranboo, but he definitely remembers that his black side bleeds green -- his tears are burning him. whatever combination of species or experiments happened with this kid definitely made a being that isn’t biologically competent. he shouldn’t even be  _ able _ to cry if it’ll burn himself.

shaking his head and realizing that now really isn’t the time for techno to be analyzing the boy, he tries to pay attention to the conversation ongoing -- and realizes that he can’t understand it at all.

ranboo and phil are both speaking in a language that techno doesn’t know -- made of garbled noises and sounds that he’s 99% sure should  _ only _ be able to come from endermen. he isn’t too surprised about ranboo but…

_ “phil?” _ techno says incredulously, stupefied. “you know how to speak...enderman?”

phil looks at him. “you don’t? aren’t you supposed to be world-famous throughout the realms or something?”

“when i travel to other places, i usually end up  _ killing _ the population, phil, not  _ conversing _ with them.”

phil nods understandingly and furrows his brows, trying to speak to ranboo but being cut off by the boy’s inane muttering. he pulls his legs up to his chest and starts tugging at his hair, and phil’s eyes flash with slight recognition before sighing.

techno taps his foot impatiently, pulling with bits of his own hair and asking, “can’t you ask him to speak in common or s’m’th’n’, i can’t help if i don’t understand.”

phil shakes his head. “he can’t, techno, he isn’t really...awake, i guess,” techno blinks twice and phil rolls his eyes. “he said he was going to go back to his panic room, which he’s said multiple times that he never wants to go back to. he’s not going to remember most of this when he snaps out of this...sleepwalk mode, i dunno. i don’t want to forcefully snap him out of it, i’ve done it before and he seemed fine, but at those points he was just...vibing. i don’t know what’ll happen here.”

“okay, fine, can’t you translate?”

phil looks at techno as if he’s a blithering idiot before seemingly remembering that techno has no idea what he’s doing in this situation. “ender is ex- _ tremely _ hard to translate, mate, you’ve gotta learn this shit in professional lessons and ancient texts or whatever.”

techno snorts. “oh, and you just expected me to know it by chance, alright then.”

“what, do you think it’s too hard for you or something?” techno doesn’t reply. phil lets out a quiet huff of laughter, and techno is glad he could relieve some of the stress (at his own expense). phil sits quietly, thinking, and ranboo has gone eerily still and silent. phil’s head suddenly snaps up and he hurriedly says something to ranboo, who mutters something quietly. phil leans back with a hand on his forehead, groaning and saying, “this is going to be so fuckin’ weird.”

“what?” techno asks, justifiably confused. “what is it?”

“alright, so,” phil holds out his hands as if he’s about to start a very long explanation. “endermen have this weird thing that they can do, they’ve got a lotta things that can...mess with the brain, i dunno, they’re freaky.and they can like...possess people, i guess?”

techno almost visibly recoils, having to control himself before he does something to make the situation worse. he feels his bottom canine start to poke into his upper lip and he forces himself to calm down. “they can  _ what? _ wh -- how come i’ve never heard about this? why would nobody -- like, talk about this? they can do  _ what??” _

“calm down, mate, nobody talks about it because nobody knows about it. they need to get  _ permission _ to do it, alright, and they can’t  _ get _ permission unless someone else knows how to speak and understand ender. and basically nobody knows how to do that.”

techno calms down slightly and frowns. “still feel like i woulda’ heard about that from somewhere. so, what, can enderman hybrids do that, too?”

phil scrunches up his nose. “i’m pretty sure that’s like, the rarest shit ever, and if they can, it’s  _ super _ illegal in public servers. especially in hypixel, people got killed over that.”

techno looks incredulous and then disgusted. hybrid laws on hypixel were awful, techno (of course) knows that, but to get  _ killed _ over...wow. he won’t even ask about why he never heard of the law -- as soon as you get even vaguely popular over there, you get pulled aside by the server mods and given your own special set of rules -- techno’s included that he wasn’t able to shift into his more pig-like form  _ ever,  _ even if it was allowed by the other party. If one of his tusks even vaguely got too big because of panic or stress, the round would be called.

he’s never even though about what other hybrid’s rules would be. and he knows ranboo was on hypixel, he’d seen him on the leaderboards, he definitely got his own sets of rules. he wonders…

he shakes his head. “alright, how does that help us here? what are we doin’ here, why does any of that matter?”

“as far as i know, dream doesn’t have any of those rules. and ranboo...can’t really understand us very well, either. so i can be a medium, i guess. fuck, it’s been a while --”

“is it safe?” the question tumbles from techno’s mouth before he realizes it, and phil chuckles and waves him off.

“it’ll be fine, just don’t let me leave if he starts to try, m’kay? i’ll be fine, mate.”

phil says a few things to ranboo and techno braces himself...for what, he doesn’t know. ranboo lets one of his hands leave his hair shakily, and phil reaches and latches onto it, closing his eyes as their arms move almost in sync to make their wrists connect. the position lingers, and techno scrambles back when phil’s eyes start to  _ glow. _ they project his blue color for a moment before suddenly changing to  _ green. _

and then phil  _ screams,  _ and techno’s hand inches towards his sword.

phil covers his mouth suddenly, his expression definitely not matching what it usually is. he looks panicked, and his face looks softer and younger than it has been in a bit. his pupils are small and -- techno glances away. the green eyes are unsettling.

“i’m sorry, i’m sorry!” phil says, and his voice is higher, too -- slightly. “i didn’t mean to st -- scare you, i’m sorry techno, sorry.”

“it’s -- it’s fine, kid, just --” techno looks back and sighs. “can you explain what the matter is, please.”

phil’s eyes are unblinking as his eyes fill with tears and his head snaps down unsettlingly hard and fast, and a silly, not incredibly panicked part of his brain hopes that ranboo’s sixteen/seventeen year old movements and energy won’t break some of phil’s old man bones. “i don’t -- i -- i dreamed that...i dreamed that i went to go and visit dream...i-in prison, and he kept saying things and i don’t, i don’t…”

techno blinks. “kid, what was he saying? i can’t look into your head, you’ve gotta tell me.”

but ranboo (phil, whatever) doesn’t answer, his panicked breaths growing in intensity before he jerks, clutching at his hair yet again. techno tilts his head to the side as phil squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head and muttering under his breath before letting out a gasp.

his eyes fly open and techno blinks in confusion. one of his eyes is green as it was before, and the other is blue.

“techno,” phil says, and his voice sounds layered. techno is convinced that this is a dream. he doesn’t at all sound concerned -- or rather, he sounds concerned, but not about himself. more in a parental manner. “he hears voices sometimes, and it sounds like dream -- it manifests itself as dream and bothers him a lot.”

the man’s face shifts into a scowl, and his hands start to crawl up to his hair in a slight panic. “phil!” he says, distressed. “you weren’t -- i told you not to tell techno!” he perks up an eyebrow and his mouth becomes a thin line. “well, keeping it a secret isn’t going to do you much good  _ now,  _ is it, mate?”

techno stands, gobsmacked. ranboo -- dear, sweet, unsuspecting ranboo has  _ dream _ living in his head? he obviously doesn’t have all the details (it was supposed to be a secret? why would he tell phil and not him?) but the thought of that is enough to make him shudder before shaking his head with a huff. “this is a nightmare.”

“we could very well have this conversation without you, techno.” phil suddenly snaps, and his voice sounded less layered. techno supposes that they agreed on that one statement, and it makes him laugh slightly.

“not  _ you,  _ though you are pretty terrifying.”

“fuck you” and “shut up”  _ somehow _ layer on top of one another, and techno doesn’t even want to consider the implications of exactly how that happened. and techno suddenly realizes that ranboo!phil doesn’t talk with phil’s accent. this is a generally horrifying situation, even though it isn’t explicitly that scary at all.

“ranboo i am -- i have practically  _ broadcasted _ the fact that i hear voices to the two of you, why you  _ i _ be the person you’re hidin’ that from?”

phil’s face shifts to be softer, and he looks visibly uncomfortable, taking off his hat and fidgeting with it before muttering, “you -- when i said that i blew up the ‘mmunity house, you -- i saw it, you didn’t...you said you didn’t care, but you thought it was weird and i was untrustworthy and it’s obvious that you don’t really trust me all that much because of that so i didn’t want to say that dream was in my head and then you’d think i was working with him in any way which i  _ might _ be that’s what he’s telling me but i swear i didn’t do it on purpo -- Jesus, mate, you talk a lot -- sorry.”

techno blinks, once, twice, and then he feels guilt rising in his chest. “kid, no, i didn’t...well, i mean --”

“it’s okay, techno, i understand,” ranphil (or whatever) says quietly, and the guilt swells. phil’s face shifts into a glare towards techno, and if there’s one thing the piglin hybrid knows, it’s that that expression  _ definitely _ belongs to phil.

“look, kid, this really isn’t the time to try and make this all alright or whatever since you’re still on the verge of a panic attack and -- i dunno, sleeping? sleep -- sleepwalking?” he looks to phil for confirmation and he shrugs.

“what are you talking about? i’m awake? nothing, mate. okay.”

techno stares before shaking his head and crouching slightly. “we can deal with all of that later. just explain to me what dream was saying, okay?”

phil takes in a shuddering breath as if he was crying and braces himself before whispering out in one breath, “i dreamed that i went to visit him and i was going to go and tell him off and tell at him and then when i got there he said that he was my best friend and that we had talked a whole lot and that we were really close and then he had my memory books and he said that he was me! and he said that i was him,” he inhales sharply, and techno sees tears prick at the corners of phil’s eyes, which looks incredibly weird to him but he thinks he can filter out the weird. “and then he disappeared and said that he wasn’t -- and then the ceiling of the prison caved in and i fell over and then. i think i died. i woke up and it hurt. it --” his voice drops to a whisper. “it hurt so bad, it hurt in real life, too, it felt like everything shattered and was crushed and --”

“ranboo,” techno says firmly, staring into phil’s bi-colored eyes. “stop possessin’ phil for a sec, i needa talk to you for real for a sec.”

phil frowns. “techno, are you sure? you’re still not gonna be able to understand him.”

“will he be able to understand me?”

phil’s blue eye blinks. “y...es?”

techno shakes his head. “then yes, i’m sure, just get out for a minute, please.”

phil shrugs before shuddering  _ intensely,  _ letting out a forced exhale and snapping back to attention. both of his eyes are back to blue, and ranboo’s seemingly sleeping form startles out of unconsciousness, reoccupied.

before another word between them passes, techno swiftly crosses the room and bends down to look at the boy in the eyes, and surprisingly, ranboo looks right back. he supposes he doesn’t have any aura of malicious intent, because he’s trying to be as genuine as possible here. He holds both of ranboo’s shoulders and says in the sternest tone of voice he can muster up, “your name is ranboo. you aren’t dream. you don’t have to do anything for dream, and he’s locked away and can’t hurt you or do  _ anything _ to you. the voice doesn’t influence your decisions, and you don’t have to listen to it or do what it says, even if it’s telling the truth. you are in control of you, okay? your name is ranboo and you are in control of  _ you.” _

ranboo is silent for a moment, glancing down to seemingly process this information before stiffening under techno’s hands and going limp. This, obviously, scares techno out of his cape. “oh -- Jesus Christ, did he pass out?”

before phil can even respond, ranboo snaps back up with wide eyes and a yelp, and techno lets go of him and backs up. he, frankly, looks terrified, before recognizing the two people in the room with him and looking slightly amused, almost. “hoh boy,” he says under his breath. “i don’t even  _ want _ to know the story here.”

techno lets out a breathy chuckle. “yeah, it’s a wild one.”

“sleepwalk state?”

phil nods.

“panic room related?”

“vaguely.”

ranboo groans and falls back into the couch, covering his face with his hands. “oh God, i’m sorry, guys…”

“you were kind of freaking out because of a nightmare and techno helped out of of a panic attack...basically.”

ranboo sits up to look at techno, and the hybrid suddenly feels like an enderman under the boy’s intense gaze. he feels like he’s being studied. after a few seconds, ranboo lets out a sigh before furrowing his brow. “you know about the dream voice.”

techno freezes, almost startled by the statement. “how did you --?”

the boy just shrugs. “good at reading people, i guess?” he looks up at techno wearily. “is it freaky?”

techno hesitates. “y...yeah, kind of.”

“do you hate me for it?”

techno snorts, which is a bit of a startling sound coming from a piglin hybrid, but the other two in the room are used to it. “nah, i get it, kid. you’re cool, i don’t care.”

“for real this time? Not like with the community house?”

techno freezes. both sides of him are upset about his reaction to the community house situation? did he really do that badly? “no, i’m serious. my voices tell me to kill everything that moves, ranboo, and phil’s tell him to kill everything that’s vaguely threatening. seriously.”

ranboo pauses, narrows his eyes ever-so-slightly at techno before accepting it and relaxing his entire body, leaning back into the couch yet again. “oh. okay then. thank you for helping me, then, and i’m sorry for bothering you.”

techno lets out a breathy chuckle yet again, shaking his head slightly.

“it’s no problem, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BONUS:
> 
> "you okay, techno?"
> 
> "yeah, why?"
> 
> "you kind of went into big brother mode back there. i haven't heard you use that tone of voice since tommy told you about _his_ voices."
> 
> written on 2/1/21.
> 
> PLEASE WHY IS THIS 3000+ WORDS IT COULD BE IT'S OWN BOOK IM CRYING
> 
> don't ask me where the possession idea came from, it might of been some weird somnia!boo mutation idk, but I mean. whatever. here! take it! i was gonna write more but I forget everything I wanted to say so! bye!


	14. questions answered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tubbo plays a prank on Ranboo and it goes just a bit too far.

tubbo has never been good at reading people's emotions. he isn't, never has been, and probably never will be. he's never known when to stop a joke or when he's taken something too far. it's definitely a problem, enough people have told him that for him to know, but he forgets about it until the next time someone reprimands him.

the people that suffer at the hands of his 'jokes' are usually one of his two best friends, tommy and ranboo. and tommy doesn't get a good enough reaction (he doesn't really get scared by much anymore), so he's fully turned on ranboo as a victim. and man, this guy falls for _everything._ it's great.

he pulls his brown coat closer around him, shivering because of the freezing cold temperatures in snowchester. ranboo walks around in his netherite armour, as per usual, with his helmet off and his ears completely exposed. he has no idea how the guy doesn't get cold with nothing but his suit and freezing cold metal pressing against his skin, but whenever he asks, the guy just shrugs and responds with "enderman." (it's funny most of the time, ~~and infuriating when tubbo wants answers.~~ )

they're joking and chatting about some of the newer drama going on between karl, quackity, and sapnap, because when is something _not_ happening with those three? they always have silly arguments and try to drag half of the server onto their side.

he isn't paying attention to where he's going in the _slightest,_ and when the two of them end up near the plethora of berry bushes ranboo planted everywhere, tubbo catches his foot in a root that's come up from under the ground and goes _flying._

he can’t break his fall, but he lands on the ground _right_ next to a fallen branch that would have hurt like a _bitch_ if he did actually hit his head on it. he hears ranboo yelp from far above him, and his rushed and panicked "oh my god, are you okay?" makes tubbo snicker inwardly.

and then he realizes. he probably thinks tubbo actually hit the branch. _an opportunity._

tubbo shakes the snow out of his hair with a particularly animalistic huff, blowing fog from his nose in the action. he tries to stand up, and he feels ranboo pull him in assistance. he smiles once he's fully on his feet, looking ranboo directly in the eyes (something that he never does out of...basic decency) and saying, "th...thanks, man, haha. i don't know what happened there, geez --"

"are you bleeding? is your head okay?" ranboo's expression is concerned, but he also looks uncomfortable with the extended eye contact tubbo refuses to break the stare as he lifts his hand to his head, wincing as an actual jolt of pain goes through his skull. maybe he didn't hit his head on the branch, but he sure did hit his head. "yeah, n-no, it hurts, definitely, but i think it'll be okay in a bit."

ranboo lets out a relived sigh, closing his eyes and saying, "well, that's good, i suppose. i was scared you actually got, like, badly hurt."

tubbo waves him off. "i'm fine. now, i don't think i've seen you around snowchester before!" the smaller boy takes delight in the look of confusion that spreads across ranboo's face as he continues, saying, "i can give you a tour, if you'd like! i founded this place, my name is tubbo."

he holds out a hand with a kind, innocent smile. "what's your name?"

tubbo has never been good at reading people. and the panic that jolts behind ranboo's eyes fuels him to continue, a quiet aspect of malice festering in the back parts of his mind that is fed every time he plays one of his pranks cheering with excitement.

the game is afoot.

“haha, very funny,” ranboo says shakily, rolling his eyes. tubbo falters and frowns. no, he’s acting, right? yeah, he sounds panicked, tubbo thinks, and decides that that’s reason enough to continue.  
  
“what do you mean?” he asks in the most innocent voice he can muster. “i don’t _think_ we’ve met before, maybe i’ve just forgotten? there are a lotta people on this server, so i’m sorry if --”

“tubbo, seriously,” ranboo’s hand brushes against one of tubbo’s horns as he tries to place a hand on his shoulder, making him flinch away. he feels bad about it before realizing that it works perfectly -- he wouldn’t let a stranger touch him, would he? he looks into ranboo’s eyes yet again, and the fear flooded behind them makes the shorter boy feel as if it’s worked. “please tell me you’re joking.”

“i don’t…” he furrows his eyebrows together, taking a wary step backwards in the direction of his house. “i don’t really know what i would be joking about, i’m sorry. are you okay? you seem to be a little on edge.”

ranboo lets out a strangled chuckle, his pupils contracting as he brings his hands to his own slender form with a quiet, “yeah, a little -- a little on edge, sure.” part of tubbo thinks this is the most refined source of entertainment, part of him wants him to stop because _it doesn’t matter if you’re bad at reading people, anyone can tell that he’s panicking,_ and part of him is curious.

and tubbo is a curious person. he does most of his things because of his curiosity, and these jokes are no different. and besides, he hears that ranboo is a panicky person all the time, and he’s never actually seen it himself. he wonders how he reacts to these kinds of things, and is wanting answers really a crime?

“no, no no no, okay, tubbo?” ranboo snaps him out of his thoughts, his hands moving around in a jagged manner. “my name is ranboo, i’m your friend, i’m pretty sure, i’ve been here for _months.”_ a terrified, forced smile rises to his face, and he looks desperate as he basically pleads, “you remember the bee dome, right? we built that together when tommy was in exile, remember?”

“uh…i remember _a_ beekeeping dome, i don’t remember building it, though,” he frowns, and takes another step back. “what are you trying to pull here?”

_”nothing,_ i’m not pulling anything, tubbo, please,” the enderman hybrid abandons basically all reservations and grabs onto both of tubbo’s shoulders, towering over the far shorter boy with tears brimming in his eyes. “please tell me that you remember me. i don’t care if it’s a joke or if you don’t actually remember, just _say it._ i don’t believe it, i...i _can’t_ believe it. please.”

tubbo’s face shifts from the face innocence to his own genuine concern when he notices the red and green tinted tears start to overflow, dropping from his eyes and audibly hissing when it hits his skin. tubbo wondered if the scars on his face were actually because his tears burned him. he supposes they are.

he tilts his head to the side with a bit of a snort, placing a hand on ranboo’s forearm and pushing it off. “yeah, i’m just kidding, big man,” he says lightheartedly, pushing a bush to the side as he takes a step back. “i remember you, mister my-beloved.”

the joking nickname doesn’t even make ranboo crack a smile. his eyes are wide and still filled with tears as he stares, unblinking (though that isn’t particularly unusual), his hands slowly lifting off of of tubbo’s shoulders. tubbo suddenly starts to feel...slightly guilty. “dude, come on, it was just a joke. no harm done, right?”

ranboo gives him no answer, so he presses. “...right?”

ranboo suddenly gasps (though it sounds more like a hiccup) and pulls his arms close to his own form, hugging himself around the torso whilst shaking his head as if he was trying to convince himself of something. “n...yeah. n-no harm done, yeah.”

tubbo smiles and sticks his hands into his pockets, shaking off the excess snow from his coat and trying to look as lighthearted as possible. the guilt that weighs on his neck is more than the usual kind that he’s grown accustomed to ignoring, and he doesn't know how to deal with it. so he won’t dwell on it, because that’s just as good as making it go away. he shoves ranboo’s shoulder playfully, and the boy stiffens. “lighten up, yeah? come on, it’s freezing, i wanna go inside and show you something i came up with with jack --”

“no, uh, tubbo, i think i’ll be, uh, heading home now, actually,” ranboo interrupts, his voice crackling between every other word. he flinches away from tubbo reaching out to him. “i, uh, my landlord wanted me to fill in a bunch of...creeper holes i left in front of my house, and i’ve gotta get that done today.” he lets one hand off of his body to wave it around, trying to look flippant. “property value and all that, he’s r-really into all that...stuff.”

tubbo frowns. “oh. o-okay, big man. i’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

ranboo looks down before startling, answering, “oh, um, yeah, of course! definitely. tomorrow. yeah.” well after the question was asked. he takes a step back, then another, before turning and running off into the forest surrounding snowchester.

tubbo is left in the snow with his own guilt, regret, and an answered question. perhaps he had gone too far, but a slight deterioration in a relationship is little to lose when his curiosity is fed and fuelled. it’s never hard to have ranboo back to trusting him after these kinds of events, really, so there was hardly anything lost at all. from a completely logical standpoint, this was a net win.

tubbo frowns at his own thought process. he never thinks like that on purpose -- really, he’s just like that in nature. it’s heartless to come and cruel to others but efficient to those that are logically driven. and that’s all that matters, really, isn’t it? questions answered are worth more than most temporary things.

tubbo looks in the direction of where ranboo walked away, pulls his coat around his shoulders, hugs his small frame, and heads into his house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written on 2/19/21.
> 
> it's been a bit, hasn't it!! i wrote this in ranboo's discord when someone gave the prompt "what if c!ranboo's biggest fear is being forgotten?? haha wouldn't that be ironic and funny?? haha... imagine tubbo trying to prank ranboo with 'haha sorry who are you?' after he accidentally hit his head on a drawer, and ranboo literally panics and he almost cries and tubbo is like: NONONO THAT WAS A JOKE , THAT WAS A JOKE I SWEAR OH MY GOD RANBOO- PLEASE- D:"
> 
> except the thing is, i don't _like_ c!tubbo kind of. he's already shown that he just doesn't know like, boundaries when it comes to ranboo. like. the whole trying to electric chair him, murdering an enderman in front of him to see if it affects him, pushing him past his limits with the silk touch hands thing -- it's ridiculous. SO i wrote it like that and ig it's a little bit of a character study? i think it'd be really interesting if cc!tubbo grew on that aspect of his character that he's already shown...idk i just think it'd be funky.
> 
> neways, hope you've been having a good month so far!! I'll try and post here more, and i hope you enjoyed!! have a good rest of day/afternoon/night!


End file.
